Phil Mickelson handed out a signed glove and ball to his playing partner Ryan Peake after the pair competed alongside each other in the opening round of The Open Championship.
Peake played his way into The Open after winning the New Zealand Open earlier this year. His win completed quite the turnaround, after the Australian, an ex-bike gang member, had spent five years in prison for serious assault before being released in 2019.
Having played his way into the final major championship of the season, Peake was given the opportunity to play with one of golf’s best in LIV Golf man Mickelson. It comes amid the devastating news that a 28-year-old golfer was killed on the course, leaving fellow players asking major questions about the circumstances.
And in the aftermath of Peake’s game with Mickelson, he was able to take a little memento with him. “It was pretty good,” Peake said of spending the opening day of the event alongside the six-time major winner. “I just asked for his golf ball and got him to sign a golf glove for me after.”
While the experience was an amazing one, Peake failed to find his best golf, carding an opening six-over-par 77 on Thursday.
Reflecting on his day on the Northern Irish links, the Aussie added: “I know everyone is going to look at it and say you take the experience in and stuff like that, but obviously very disappointed with the round.
“Not what I want. So pretty flat at the moment. Was pretty flat out there as well. I just got beat up out there. I felt like I did a couple of things all right and kind of didn’t get rewarded for them. But I was like Father Christmas out there; I was just handing out presents to the golf course.
“I just kept throwing them away, and it was just very frustrating. But I’m sure I’ll — obviously I’ve still got tomorrow and I’ll try and do something to make this cut.
“But the whole experience sort of thing, that’s something that I’ll look on further down the track. I’m not trying to — I’m here to compete. I’m in a competitive mode. So yeah, I was pretty flat.”
“Like I really enjoy playing these conditions and playing this tournament. It’s just a lot of fun.” Not many in this week’s field have more experience than Mickelson, and the 2013 Champion was able to lean on this on Thursday. I think, when you get conditions like this, you start to fall back on realizing that 60, 80 feet in the proper spot is like a good spot,” he added.
“You start to realize that you can make 20- or 30-footers out here. You don’t have to hit it 6 feet to make a birdie. You can hit it 20, 30 feet because the greens don’t break a lot, and you can hit them aggressively.
“I didn’t make a ton of long ones, but I made a lot of short ones and a lot of good up-and-downs and lag putting. You find thatgoing back on past experience, you don’t have to press it. You don’t have to force it.”
