The beauty of The Open Championship is that anyone can qualify: even ex-Premier League footballer Jimmy Bullard had a go this year.
But Australian golfer Ryan Peake encapsulates that spirit better than anybody.
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Few golfers will tell a better backstory than Peake in Northern Ireland this weekCredit: Getty
The 31-year-old is competing at Royal Portrush having been released from a five-year prison sentence in 2019.
After growing up alongside 2022 Open champion Cameron Smith, Peake fell out of love with the game and became a ‘bikie’, joining a motorcycle gang called The Rebels.
“I was just normalised to it,” he said. “All my friends that I grew up with, they were kind of around that scene and it wasn’t abnormal to hang out in that sort of scene.
“It’s something that I did find love in and I did enjoy it. I was interested in it and I just found something there that I felt like I hadn’t found anywhere else.”
Despite the camaraderie and sense of belonging, Peake found himself caught up in a violent world, which boiled over in 2014 and left him with a criminal conviction of grievous bodily harm.
“It was just basically that’s the life I was living and there was someone else out there that was living the same sort of lifestyle, that was making threats,” Peake recalled.
“I’m not saying it’s right that I’ve gone and beat someone up, but I haven’t gone and beat up your dad that’s just doing nothing, mowing his front lawn. He’s a person that was living my lifestyle as well.
“Not justifying it. But that’s how we would speak to each other. Meet their character with your character and whatever prevails from there. He was doing some bad things and we had knowledge offered and then he made some pretty heinous threats towards us as well. So we just went to deal with it and honestly, it wasn’t meant to happen like that.
“We were generally just going there for a chat and he was probably going to get a couple punches along the way and it was left at that. It just happened to be that the threats that he threatened us with were true. He was armed and it escalated from there. That’s it.”
Peake was sent to Hakea, which has a reputation for being one of Australia’s most brutal jails.
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Peake has the frame of a heavyweight boxer after five years in prisonCredit: Getty
The Aussie recalled: “I mean, it is bad. But I remember they always used to have the saying as well, ‘if you don’t like the accommodation, don’t book the reservation’. And I booked that one for myself.
“It’s pretty appalling. It’s more appalling for the fact there’s limited space. They try to cram so many people in. They’re just way too overpopulated and I think the whole justice system essentially, yeah you’ve done a crime, you go to jail, I don’t argue with that, but going to jail is to try and rehabilitate you to come out as a better person.
“And by putting people in I guess places like that where it’s disgusting, you’re treated unfairly, it’s overpopulated, three people in a cell where there’s only meant to be one, it’s disgusting.
“That’s not necessarily rehabilitating you, that’s making you more p***** off and you’re probably going to come out an angry person as well because you’ve just been treated like c**p.
“But in saying that as well, it was my choices that I made that led me there. So you just deal with it I guess.”
Despite all of that, Peake did plenty of rehabilitation and reconnected with famed golf coach Richie Smith during his time inside.
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Peake quit his life as a bikie while he was in prison and turned his attention back to a professional golfing careerCredit: Getty
Smith had not given up on the talented prodigy golfer he saw all those years ago – and convinced Peake to refocus on a golfing career upon his release.
Having picked up a club for the first time in six years, Peake immediately realised there was a lot of work to do.
“I was pretty s***,” he said. “It was pretty average, it wasn’t great. I mean, it went forward, but a lot has come since then.”
Indeed, Peake would go on to stage a remarkable comeback story over the years that followed, winning the New Zealand Open in March this year – on the same week his fiancee said yes – and booking his place at Royal Portrush.
He is only permitted entry into the UK thanks to a British passport obtained with the help of his father’s English background.
And now, during the biggest week of his life, the irony is not lost on anybody that Peake just wants to be free.
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Peake is refusing to let this week define who he is as a personCredit: Getty
He said: “I want to make the cut but my expectation is basically… I just want to be able to get on that first tee and feel myself and just play my golf, feel comfortable, just play my game, be within myself and the result will be what it will be.
“I don’t want to get caught up in anything, I just want to be free and do that the best I can. If I can do that then I’m not going to have to worry about the result, that will speak for itself.”
Peake added: “Instead of thinking about the things that have happened to get me to where I am, I’ve probably more thought about what would happen if I did make a bogey or something dumb that last hole [at the New Zealand Open].
“Then none of this happens and I’m just back to pretty much essentially where I was. So it just shows how tedious and doing things at the right moment on the right day changes lives, right?
“And it’s very hard to do and the opportunities are very minimal. It would have been a completely different story if I’d come second.
“It would have been a few congratulations for that week and then that’s it, you’re just trying to chase it again.
“So no, I’m definitely not there and I don’t think about it as a massive achievement for the rest of my life and things like that. It’s just helped me get to the next stage of where we can then build from.”
Listen to live coverage of The 153rd Open live from Royal Portrush, starting at 7am on Thursday!