Australian Golfer Ryan Peake To Make Remarkable Open Championship Debut After 5-year Prison Sentence

Ryan Peake will tee up astatine Royal Portrush connected Thursday, and really he sewage this opportunity is dissimilar anyone other successful nan field. 

That’s because nan Australian golfer won nan New Zealand Open 5 years aft he spent half a decade successful prison. 

Peake was a talented inferior golfer that turned master erstwhile he was 19 years old. But, according to the BBC, Peake was "burnt out" from nan crippled and joined nan Rebels, an outlawed motorcycle gang, 2 years aft turning pro. 

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Ryan Peake of Australia celebrates pinch nan New Zealand Open trophy aft winning nan 2025 New Zealand Open astatine Millbrook Resort connected March 2, 2025 successful Queenstown, New Zealand. (Hannah Peters/Getty Images)

"I was conscionable normalized to it," Peake, now 31, said astir joining nan biker gang. "It wasn’t abnormal from wherever I was from to bent retired successful that benignant of segment pinch my friends. 

"It’s thing that I did find emotion successful and I did bask it. I was willing successful it, and I conscionable recovered thing location that I felt for illustration I hadn’t recovered anyplace else."

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Peake was a "bikie," but being a portion of an outlaw manner intends nan consequence of serving clip successful prison, which is what happened aft assaulting personification he said was "making threats towards us."

"We conscionable went to woody pinch it, and honestly, it wasn’t meant to hap for illustration that," Peake explained, per nan BBC. "We were mostly conscionable going location for a chat, and he was astir apt going to get a mates of punches on nan way, and it was near astatine that."

Peake landed successful a maximum information correctional facility, and it was location wherever he decided he "wanted to execute amended things."

Former Open Championship victor Ian Baker-Finch congratulates Ryan Peake of Australia aft winning nan 2025 New Zealand Open qualifying him for nan adjacent Open Championship astatine Millbrook Resort connected March 2, 2025 successful Queenstown, New Zealand.  (Hannah Peters/Getty Images)

"I didn’t profit from being a bikie," Peak said. "I enjoyed nan manner while I was surviving it, but it wasn’t going to get maine up successful life, and I was conscionable ever going to autumn further and further down and astir apt lead to much jail."

Peake was a teammate of 2022 Champion Golfer of nan Year Cameron Smith astatine nan clip he was convicted.

But he returned to play aft jail, and nan lefty started to get his profession backmost connected track. Thanks to thief from coach Richie Smith, arsenic good arsenic support from his family, Peake received his Australasian circuit paper this play and earned his first master triumph astatine nan New Zealand Open.

In turn, Peake earned himself a spot successful this year’s Open Championship. 

Ryan Peake of Australia celebrates aft winning nan 2025 New Zealand Open astatine Millbrook Resort connected March 2, 2025 successful Queenstown, New Zealand. (Hannah Peters/Getty Images)

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He will beryllium teeing up pinch Phil Mickelson and Daniel van Tonder astatine 2:19 a.m. ET connected Thursday to statesman his tournament.

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