The Open 2025: The ex-bike gang member competing at Royal Portrush

For Peake – who began playing golf aged 10 – being a “bikie” was like having a “hobby that you live and breathe as well”.

However, aligning himself with that lifestyle ultimately landed him in jail for his part in assaulting someone who, in his words, was making “threats towards us”.

“We just went to deal with it, and honestly, it wasn’t meant to happen like that,” Peake recalled.

“We were generally just going there for a chat and he was probably going to get a couple of punches along the way and it was left at that.

“It just happened to be that the threats he threatened us with were true. He was armed and it escalated from there.”

Having played in the same Australian junior golf teams as future Open champion Cameron Smith, adjusting to “appalling conditions” in a maximum security correctional facility represented a dramatic downfall.

But while inside, he began the process of rehabilitation.

“I wanted to achieve better things in my life as far as I was never going to profit from being a bikie, and I didn’t profit from being a bikie,” said Peake.

“I enjoyed the lifestyle while I was living it, but it wasn’t going to get me ahead in life, and I was just always going to fall further and further behind and probably lead to more jail.

“But I’ve had great support networks that have always helped me. And this time I took the advice that they were giving me and followed the path they were trying to pave for me.”

‘They’ include Ritchie Smith, the experienced Australian coach who contacted Peake while he was in prison.

Smith, whose students Min Woo Lee and Elvis Smylie are also competing in Northern Ireland this week, believed there was a way back to golf for Peake.

“I obviously didn’t believe it at the start, but like he says, he did,” explained the heavily tattooed left-hander.

“And, you know, like I said before as well, he coaches major winners. He coaches the world’s best. He’s not going to dedicate his time in something that he doesn’t believe in himself, so that’s what got me believing it would happen.

“I gave it a go. I probably didn’t think it was going to exactly get to where it’s got to now, and we’re trying to progress further obviously, but it was definitely a stepping stone, and it came from there.”