Renowned golf coach Ritchie Smith was astonished to discover what had happened to talented junior golfer Ryan Peake.
The details were contained in a letter Peake wrote from prison, where he was serving time for a serious assault that took place when he was a member of the outlawed Rebels Motorcycle Club.
Ryan Peake celebrates his win at Millbrook in the New Zealand Open.Credit: Getty Images
Peake – who on Sunday won the New Zealand Open and passage to the prestigious British Open, provided he can secure a visa – was about halfway through a five-year prison term when he contacted Smith.
“[He] told me the story in this letter about what had happened and how he had put on 30 or 40 kilograms and then dropped the weight. He had started coaching golf. He realised he had let down a whole lot of people,” Smith said.
“In my business you are coaching kids and all of a sudden they lose interest and they just disappear, and he just disappeared.”
This was no ordinary vanishing act. Peake had found a sense of belonging at the bikie club, and found trouble, too.
Peake celebrates with friends after winning the New Zealand Open. Credit: Getty Images
He was 21 when he and other Rebels members visited a man who had allegedly threatened their club. “I dropped him,” Peake told The West Australian in 2022.
The victim was further set upon and left with serious injuries, and Peake ended up behind bars from 2014.
It was not a pleasant experience, but he knew he’d done wrong. More distressing than the personal cost was knowledge of how his life direction had affected his family and friends.
He started taking small steps to turn his life around.
“It’s kind of like a bad day on the golf course. If things aren’t going right, you have to finish your round, and it is the same as jail. You have to finish it as much as you do or don’t like it. It’s there, and you can’t just go home,” Peake told the Tee It Up golf podcast in 2023.
Smith had not forgotten the talented youngster who teamed with major winner Cam Smith to win a Trans-Tasman trophy and played in the Australian Open as a 17-year-old. He knew Peake was a bit different, but had also considered him a terrific person.
“When I found it out, I just thought I would give him a ring. I just wanted to talk to him and say ‘hi’. He was one of those people who never lied. He was always the most honest person, and I really respected him,” Smith said.
That contact, and most importantly, the support of family and friends, led Peake back to golf and, on Sunday, the chance to win the New Zealand Open.
Smith emphasises it was Peake who did the work, who found the motivation. He was just alongside him with many others.
Peake holds the NZ Open trophy as a rainbow fills the skyCredit: Getty Images
On Sunday morning, with four shots separating Peake from overnight leader Guntaek Koh, Smith made another call to Peake, putting another of his charges, Min Woo Lee, on the line from Florida.
He told Peake that whatever score he shot at Queenstown’s Millbrook Resort, whether he was ahead at the end of the tournament or down the card, victory was assured.
Smith told Peake he had made those closest to him proud, regardless of the result.
“It could be the way [Smith] just talks to you. You only need to talk to him to all of a sudden feel a sense of relief, and everything is all good,” Peake said later.
That relationship wasn’t built overnight. Once Smith got a sense Peake was keen to get back on the golf course, he set out a plan to bring out his best.
He did not sugarcoat things. He told him what would be required physically to get him back into shape to play golf. Peake’s shoulder was operated on and discussions ensued with the prison authorities about what treatment would help.
And Peake got to work, following a training plan set out by Western Australian golf physiotherapist Martin McInnes. Then, when he was eligible for day release – having been transferred to Wooroloo – he hit the driving range and played in tournaments.
On one occasion, Peake won a competition at his club Lakelands in the north of Perth then went back to prison to sleep. It’s a club where he rightfully feels at home, with four club championships to his name, the first as a 13-year-old.
Smith had Peake back shooting par within a month, but knew it was a much longer road back to professional golf.
The former bikie even told The West Australian last year that when he ran the idea of quitting the Rebels to play golf to the bikie club’s members they backed him. “As soon as I told them, they said I should go for it,” Peake said.
He did, playing golf while working as a fly-in, fly-out worker in the mines before returning to pro golf in 2022.
He ramped up his commitment this summer, playing a tournament virtually every week – missing the cut in the Australian PGA and Open – before finding some form at the end of January. That led to him to the New Zealand Open, if he could only get a visa. Getting across the ditch looked doubtful until Tuesday when he received a special direction order that allowed him to cross the Tasman.
It gave him one day to prepare, but it was enough as he shot 23 under to win the tournament by one shot. His final-day 66 was nerveless as he holed a 10-foot putt on the 18th to win.
Now he has automatic entry into The Open championship at Royal Portrush in July. Gaining entry to the UK is the only hurdle.
Smith says Peake has the game to succeed on the links course.
“He is very powerful but he has got great hands,” Smith said. “He is talented. I don’t think it is ever going to look perfect. He has not been sculpted for golf given what we do with players these days, but he has an ability to deliver the club powerfully and relatively consistently.
“I don’t know what makes him different, but he is different. He has innate skills that can’t be taught. He is not afraid of a low score.”
Now the world beckons, with the financial windfall from his weekend win helping as much as the chance to play in more tournaments.
“People make bad decisions, some worse than others, but it just goes to show that if you don’t actually give up on someone … you need to support them, and you just don’t know what is going to come from it,” Peake told the ABC on Sunday.
“It’s life-changing,” Peake said.
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