Ryan Peake’s return to the New Zealand Open and the alpine beauty of Queenstown marks a year on from the start of an inspiring golf story, and he’s hoping to write another chapter.
Ryan Peake isn’t one for superstitions. Get to know the West Australian and it becomes clear that he runs on honesty, process and results. But there is a motif he has noticed about the New Zealand Open – Peake keeps landing in Queenstown on the Tuesday night of tournament week.
A year ago, it was because of immigration issues related to his time in prison as a former member of an outlaw motorcycle gang. Those hurdles were cleared at the last minute, and he was able to fly across the Tasman. By week’s end, he’d won the New Zealand Open.
This year, it’s because he’s a globetrotting DP World Tour member, coming in hot from Kenya to Queenstown to defend his title. “It’s going to be funny because last year, when I won New Zealand, I didn’t get in until the Tuesday night because of the immigration issues,” Peake tells Australian Golf Digest. “But I’m going to be [playing] the Kenya Open [the week before] and not getting into New Zealand until the Tuesday night again. It’s the quickest I can get there. So, I’m hoping there’s a little bit of déjà vu there.”
At the 104th New Zealand Open, Peake’s life changed after a clutch par save on the last green secured a one-shot victory. Within hours, the world had read what was a contender for the sports story of the year. Peake’s triumph was a hard-fought and emotional comeback from a promising golf career sidelined for five years while wearing prison greens relating to two assaults. He was a member of the Rebels in Perth before and during his incarceration. After being released, he spent years rebuilding his golf game under swing guru Ritchie Smith and rediscovering how to compete as a pro on the PGA Tour of Australasia.
Because the New Zealand Open was a tournament on the R&A’s Open Qualifying Series, Peake also secured a major debut, months in advance, for the 153rd Open Championship at Royal Portrush. As such, he became recognisable throughout the golf world – a tall, strapping lad with tattoos and a left-handed golf swing. His story drew the attention of plenty of worldwide mainstream media outlet from FOX News (US) to the Daily Mail (UK) and CNN (US). With striking self-awareness and humility, he embraced the interest in being asked to retell his story over and over. All the while, the 32-year-old would remind reporters and presenters that it wasn’t “a great” story – as compelling as it was – because there had been repercussions to his actions.
If there’s one lesson Peake has learned in the past 12 months, it’s that redemption properly earned is a universal theme. It transcends golf and sports in general.
“I’m always going to see it differently because I’ve lived it,” Peake says. “Obviously, it’s attracted a lot of attention. I guess I scratch my head thinking, Why? But with other people who have never seen that background, I can see why they’re intrigued by it. I’ve become a lot more recognised. I’ve gained a lot more followers. I’ve got a lot of supporters now, and my supporters have come from all walks of life. Some of them don’t even play golf. With some of the people who have messaged me or come up to speak to me, it’s pretty cool when some people explain their lives and then how you can have that impact on them and give them that sort of belief.”
The trajectory of his career also changed, and quickly because the New Zealand Open is also co-sanctioned by the Asian Tour. In fact, it was his first career start on that circuit. Peake suddenly had a winner’s category on the Asian Tour and could get into its lucrative International Series. In addition, given it was a PGA Tour of Australasia event, the New Zealand Open win also propelled him up the Order of Merit and into one of three cards on the DP World Tour for its
2025-2026 season.
“I guess… in ways,” Peake says when asked if life is different. “I mean, I’ve got a lot more opportunities now. My biggest stress was that I knew I was good enough but I didn’t think I was going to have enough time to [earn] an opportunity to get onto a world tour. Now I have, so I’ve got many opportunities ahead of me. It’s up to me to take advantage of those opportunities. I’ve now got a vision of how I can create more success.”
Along his new journey, Peake, who is still early in his tour career, has experienced highs and lows in terms of results across the Asian, Australasian and DP World tours. There have been clusters of missed cuts, such as the recent Bahrain Championship, Mauritius Open and Australian Open on the DP World Tour. But the positives have been meaningful: he logged a top-10 at The National Tournament in Australia, plus a run of top-40s including a T-25 at the BMW Australian PGA Championship, T-29 at the Taiwan Masters, T-33 at both WA Open and International Series Morocco and a T-37 at the Indonesia Open. Add in a T-46 at International Series Philippines and T-65 at the Saudi International, and there’s clear evidence he can post good numbers in deeper global fields. Peake also feels he’s resolved some struggles with his putting, having worked with Titleist to adopt a low-torque putter that has improved his stroke.
“The past 12 months, I’ve definitely become a far better golfer than when I won,” Peake says. “But it’s just been extremely frustrating because I’ve had poor results ever since. I’ve worked extremely hard off the course, on [skills] I need out here on a world tour, and away from golf I’m dialling it in quite well, too. It’s just yet to happen on a tournament week. Whether that’s [because] I’m thinking that I’ve got this one year to try and [keep] my [DP World Tour] card and then in Asia, I’m jumping back and forth between tours… [I don’t know].
“But I don’t lose my confidence from it. I [move] onto a new week and feel as good as ever. When I do post those poor results, it just takes me a couple of days where I’m p–sed off. But everything’s there and I get told that by my coaches and my team. Even when I’m just out there, you can see my game is there. I’ve probably just [been] forcing it a little bit. What I’m learning out [on the DP World and Asian tours] is you don’t have to be great, you’ve just got to be consistently good.”
Some of the most valuable learning experiences in the past 12 months have been during missed cuts, such as The Open at Portrush. “I wasn’t ready for [majors]; and that’s just being honest,” Peake says. “I learned that with the world’s best, their good golf is better than my best, and their worst is better than my worst. But I also realised the skills they have are very much ingrained in me as well.”
There have been some emotional moments that results can’t measure, too. Including a Tuesday practice round at The Open with his old mate, Cameron Smith. Years before Smith became the 150th Open champion at St Andrews and a multiple winner across golf’s biggest tours, he had established a bond with Peake while both were highly-touted teenage golf prospects. They played on national teams together and were roommates overseas. Smith even stayed at Peake’s house during an Australian Amateur Championship in Perth.
Peake had been counting down to that blustery and rainy July day, playing a Northern Irish coastal links masterpiece with Smith while also preparing for a major.
“Yeah, it was cool for me,” Peake recalls. “I really wanted to play with him in a practice round because I can remember, clear as day, hanging out together as kids. He stayed at my house the first day I got my driver’s licence, and I picked him up from the airport.”
When Smith won back-to-back Australian PGA titles in 2017 and 2018, Peake was still in jail.
“When I was inside a prison cell, watching him on a 13-inch TV… you [wonder if] you’re ever going to see him again,” Peake recalls. “To watch him evolve and have all the success he’s had, like [when I was out of prison] and reading in the newspapers as he became a major champion, [I’ve always been proud].
“Years later, to tee it up with him at the Open Championship and walk up the first fairway in a practice round with an Open champion, it was just something that meant a little bit more to me personally than it probably would to any other person.”
Which brings us back to the New Zealand Open, and Queenstown. Peake has another opportunity to secure a second career start at the Open Championship if he were to win again.
“I’ve proved that I can do it. You watch golfers coming down the stretch trying to win their first tournament and you see ’em making nervous mistakes and that’s something I know in my heart I’ve done and held on to win,” Peake says. “There’s a belief I can be a little bit more calm in that situation now.
“New Zealand’s going to be massive for me and I’ve obviously got some other DP World Tour events where I can qualify for it. The Open Championship week was awesome, just having my family and the team there and just seeing the enormity of a major. I wasn’t ready, but I want to get back. I want more of it.”
Indeed, there will be other opportunities to qualify for The Open and other major championships. None, though, will be as stunning and luxurious as the $1.7 million New Zealand Open, to be played from February 26 to March 1 at Millbrook Resort. Not only did Peake’s career and life change with his win, but he also proposed to his now fiancée in the alpine surrounds of Queenstown.
He now feels a connection to Queenstown and New Zealand that he can’t describe.
“I loved that country before I won the New Zealand Open; I’d been there a couple of times before,” Peake says. “There’s just something about New Zealand. It’s a rejuvenating country. Every time I’m in Queenstown and I’m outdoors, I feel connected with everything around me, which is so weird because I’m the most unspiritual person you’ll ever meet. It was my first tour win. It secured numerous opportunities for me and my family. The New Zealand Open basically put me on the map, so I owe that event everything.”
Which is why Peake will return to the New Zealand Open for its 105th edition. Once again, he’ll arrive on a Tuesday night. But this year, under completely different – and far superior – circumstances.
Photographs by getty images/Warren Little, Stuart Kerr/R&A, Hannah Peters
