It took until the cell door slammed shut on Day 1 of a five-year prison sentence for reality to hit Ryan Peake. That the sum of his choices had not just erased his present but left a future of concrete walls and razor wire. That the man who was once one of Australia's rising golfers was now surrounded by murderers, thieves and thugs in a place where violence was currency and hope was contraband. How the hell that happened is a story that defies belief; what makes that story timely is that Peake is teeing off in this week's Open Championship.
With fellow contributor Evin Priest, we explore the extraordinary life of Peake, a man whose tales seem ripped from dark fiction, about how this once-golden prodigy found himself patched into a biker gang, then caged behind bars, then somehow clawed his way back to sport's biggest stage.
—Joel Beall, senior writer
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