Like hundreds of Saturday club golf competitions every week, the wait for the presentation can be a little taxing.

Some people have families to get home to, other social engagements for the evening, or just a desire to sneak into the pokies room.

Years ago at Perth’s Lakelands Country Club, its weekly winner sat uncomfortably in his chair waiting for his prize. He looked at the clock, at the car waiting for him outside, at the setting sun and thought he couldn’t wait much longer.

He had a date that night he couldn’t miss – with the inside of his prison cell.

“Everyone is sitting there having their beer waiting to go home or work the next day, I’m literally trying to rush back to prison,” says Ryan Peake, perhaps the only person to win a Saturday stableford while on day release.

“It’s probably not a story you want, but it’s one I’ve got.”

He made it back to jail by 7pm. Just.

The 12 hours of “reintegration leave” he had for the month was well spent, starting with an early morning pick-up from his parents, breakfast at home, a round of competition golf as his family walked the fairways and then pocketing the day’s spoils from everyday members, most of whom wouldn’t have had a clue they had been beaten by the man with the most complex story in Australian golf.

If you’d turned on the television at any stage in the last couple of months to watch a bit of the local tour, it would be hard to miss the big left-handed West Australian.

No one has played more events on the PGA Tour of Australasia this season. He hits the ball a mile. He’s regularly flirted with the top of the leaderboards.

He’s approachable, chatty, even charming.

But that’s not close to half his story, one which he wishes he didn’t have, but one he owns.

“I want people to look at the negative things I had in my life, not what is happening now,” he says.

Just after his 21st birthday, Peake walked through the doors of a prison for the first time. His life as a Rebels bikie member saw him run into trouble one too many times, and a magistrate who had run out of patience.

His promising career as an amateur golfer, one in which he even roomed and paired up with Cameron Smith to win a trans-Tasman series, was the furthest thing from his mind.

“I was young and I was stupid,” he says.

“(Jail) was a new experience for me. I probably thought it was pretty cool. When I first went to jail, my mum said to me, ‘I’m glad you’re in jail because I know where you are at night time’. I was somewhat safe.”

Once his matter relating to a serious assault had been finalised through the courts, Peake was sentenced to five years imprisonment.

In his own words, he never thought he’d be locked up for that long. No one in Australian golf thought they would ever hear from him again.

But as the days turned into weeks, the weeks into months and then finally years, Peake realised it wasn’t cool to be in prison greens all the time.

“Once that novelty wears off, I remember sitting on my bed looking at my little mirror over my sink scratched up with graffiti, looking at it thinking, ‘what am I doing? What have I done?’ Then it does hit home,” he says.

Inside, he also had a small 14-inch television. The few golf tournaments in Australia shown each summer on the box proved somewhat of a salvation. He would huddle around the screen with other inmates and tell them all about who was playing and where they came from.

“I used to explain who would be the chances of winning,” Peake says. “There were a lot of side bets going on … and I did very well.

“I took Cam Smith when he won the Aussie PGA. I had a feeling he was a sure thing. I gave them the rest of the field and just took Cam outright. He came through massively for me.

“It was when Cam won (in 2017), that next week I had a few thoughts and it hit home that I had really stuffed this up.”

Shortly after, Peake received a note in his cell from someone who wanted him to add a call to his next log. Next to the name Ritchie Smith read sports coach.

Smith, who guides the careers of the Lee siblings, Minjee and Min Woo, as well as major winner Hannah Green, has previously worked with Peake.

The next time he was allowed to make a log of calls, Peake nervously punched in Smith’s number. They started talking and Peake said he was looking at doing an electrical apprenticeship when he got out.

Smith then asked a simple question: when you are released, do you want to pursue golf again?

“I just laughed it off,” Peake says. “I did wrong by him from my actions after how he treated me and how I repaid him at the time. He knows I didn’t mean any genuine hurt towards that relationship.

“It took him a few more phone calls to get me on board because I thought it was just Ritchie being positive and trying to make sure everything was all good.

The first time Peake swung a club while on day release, “it felt like swinging a brick on the end of a light pole”. He played an entire round, and while the details are a little sketchy, he shot in the 80s. The score didn’t really matter. He’d realised he could still play the game, a bit.

“It didn’t feel right at all,” he says. “But it’s like riding a bike, you lose your timing but I guess you never completely lose it all.”

The rest of his time in jail was served with a purpose: knowing he wanted to return to golf. In his first amateur tournament since being released permanently, he copped a stray three-wood from close range right into his back. The adrenaline was pumping so hard he barely flinched.

Now at 31, he’s playing his first full season schedule on the PGA Tour of Australasia. He’s lost many years in what should have been the prime of his life, but there’s still many tomorrows.

Heading into this week’s Webex Players Series Sydney event, he was on the cusp of the top 20 on the order of merit. He’s only an outside chance of making the top three to secure playing rights on the rich DP World Tour next season, but a chance nonetheless.

But with his past never far away, he’s spent most of the week trying to get visa clearance to enter New Zealand later this month for their lucrative national open and New Zealand PGA, which could make or break his order of merit chances.

He just wants to fly in and out for the two events and nothing else, but the hoops are seemingly never ending.

“Obviously there are a lot of people that don’t agree with my story, but a lot know how I’ve come back and dealt with it,” Peake says.

“I brought all that stuff upon myself. I never felt sorry for myself. You don’t realise the stress and strain you’ve put on (the lives of family and friends) as well.

“I’m only getting started with the repercussions of my past now I’m starting to travel internationally and wanting to play overseas tours. There’s so many loopholes I’ve got to go through.

“But I just want people to take a lesson from it and avoid it.”