Standing at 5-foot-11, Brad Dalke's physical presence drew attention early on in his life. His stature is more akin to a football player than a golfer. But it's not Dalke's build that makes him one of the most interesting people at OU.
As a freshman on Oklahoma’s men’s golf team, he could easily be mistaken for a senior, and that’s not a new thing for the young man who saw his name scroll across ESPN as a 12-year-old when he committed to play for coach Ryan Hybl at OU.
The early commitment — which came the summer before he started seventh grade — is what you might find with a quick Google search, but it may not even be the most interesting part of Dalke’s story. He took down the No. 1 golfer in the world (in arm wrestling). He’s the son of OU athletics trailblazers and the grandson of a Sooner legend. And now he’s on campus trying to carve his own name into Oklahoma lore.
Sooner Born and Sooner Bred
Ken Pryor, Dalke’s grandfather, became an Oklahoma hoops hero while Harry Truman was president. It was 1947 — Bud Wilkinson’s first year in Norman and three years before OU football would record its first football national championship — when Pryor banked a shot off the glass with less than 10 seconds on the clock to defeat Texas in the national semifinals and send the Sooners to their first national title game.
Twenty-seven years later, Pryor’s daughter, Kay, joined OU’s inaugural intercollegiate women’s golf team as a junior and was the team’s top finisher at the Texas Woman’s University Invitational. That same year a young man named Bill Dalke was a redshirt linebacker on coach Barry Switzer’s first national championship football team. The next year Bill Dalke would earn a starting spot and help lead his squad in a successful title defense, making him a two-time champion.
Eventually the two paths intertwined and Kay Pryor became Kay Dalke, then became the mother of seven children — all of whom would be OU fans and one of whom, the youngest, would live out his dream and comprise the family’s third generation of contribution to Oklahoma Athletics.
“I think they're all kind of secretly jealous of me getting to go here; they all love OU,” Brad said of his six older siblings, the closest of whom is seven years his elder. “But it is cool to kind of carry on the tradition and be the only one.”
It’s no accident that Brad ended up a Sooner. From the pillows on his bed to the outfits in his baby pictures, his childhood was all OU, all the time, and once he knew he wanted to play college golf, he knew where he wanted to do so.
At that point it was up to him to perform, and that was never an issue.
Making His Case
The first time Hybl got to watch his future golfer, Brad was 11 years old and competing in the 18-and-under division at the Texas Cup Invitational in Dallas. The strapping sixth grader had already seen some success on the junior circuit thanks in large part to his advanced maturity, both physically and mentally.
“(Brad’s) very mature for his age and just, he's played golf at a high level ever since a very early age,” Joey Wuertemberger, Brad’s swing coach since 2007, said. “I think he (had) just kind of that God-given ability to act responsibly as an adult very early in his career.”
It showed that day when Brad was able to turn a potentially rough first impression into one the new coach couldn’t ignore.
Hybl followed the young golfer’s group to open the second round and witnessed Brad, who didn’t recognize the coach at first, three-putt the first hole. Immediately Brad realized who was watching, and, although worried about his initial impression on the man he hoped would be his future coach, put on a show over the next two holes.
He saved par off of a rough drive on 11 and then hit a 5-wood dead into the wind on the par three 12 to place the ball five feet from the hole before converting his birdie attempt. Hybl left soon after, but Brad eventually had somebody tell him the coach’s reaction.
“I heard a story later that he was talking to someone,” Brad said, “and he’s like, ‘He’s playing with these two 17, 18 year olds that I probably should be recruiting, but this 11 year old’s beating them.’”
It wasn’t long after that initial encounter that Brad saw the news that 13-year-old quarterback David Sills had committed to play at USC. By that time Dalke was 12, and he certainly knew where he wanted to play his college golf, so he and his parents began talking about how cool it would be to make his own commitment — if there was an offer on the table.
So Brad gave Hybl a call — just a call like any other, talking about his tee time for an upcoming tournament — and toward the end he asked the coach if he’d heard about Sills’ commitment to Southern Cal. Hybl had heard, and he told Brad that next time he was in Norman he wanted to talk to him about something along those lines. That got the ball rolling. Soon after, Brad’s name was scrolling across the bottom of ESPN, prompting a nervous call from the compliance office for Hybl and an unforgettable moment for Brad.
Major Accomplishments
In the years after his commitment, Brad continued to prove his worth on the course. At 13 years old, he won the Thunderbird International Junior, one of the major championships of junior golf — something unheard of for someone of his age.
“I was the last one in the field and my mom was telling me, 'Alright, just get top half, that'd be great,’” Brad said. “She even told me it'd be okay if I got last.”
From there, he continued his run through the junior golf circuit. In 2014, after his family moved to Oklahoma when his dad got a job coaching football in Hobart — about two hours west of Norman — Brad won the 2A State Championship and played for the USA Junior Ryder Cup team. Then in 2015, the summer after he graduated a year early, he notched two impressive wins.
The first came at the PGA Junior Championship, where his second round 62 set a single round record for the championship, whose past competitors include Jordan Spieth, Phil Mickelson and Tiger Woods. His win there earned him an exemption to compete in his first PGA Tour event at the Valero Texas Open April 21 to 24.
The second major victory that summer came off the course at the Junior Invitational at Sage Valley. Rory McIlroy, the then-No. 1 golfer in the world, was Nike’s guest clinician for the weekend and accepted when Brad challenged him to an arm wrestling match. The junior golfer won easily, tweeted out a video of the encounter and went viral for the second time in his young life.
Sorry Rory 💪🏼 pic.twitter.com/vYgnRk0PF0
— Brad Dalke (@DalkeKong) April 25, 2015
“He's a jacked dude, and I thought it'd be a pretty close match, but I took him down pretty easily,” Brad laughed. “He's such a good guy though. To think he was the No. 1 golfer in the world at the time and I don't think there's many guys who would do that.”
The run-in has led to plenty of ribbing from Brad’s coaches and teammates, but according to his swing coach, who caught up with McIlroy at the World Golf Championships-Dell Match Play in March, it left an impression on one of golf’s brightest stars.
“Rory got a laugh out of it,” Wuertemberger said. “He said, 'That is one of the strongest and most athletic junior golfers I've ever seen in my career.'”
Realizing a Dream
Brad was once just the son of Sooners, visiting OU and dreaming about calling it home. Now it’s real life.
In his first 27 rounds as a Sooner, Brad has averaged a 72.93, good for third on his team. His best finish came at the Ka'anapali Classic Collegiate Invitational in Maui, Hawaii, where he carded a 206 to grab second place. His coach calls him the team’s gel. And next week he will play in a PGA Tour event on the same course as some of the biggest names in golf.
That foray into the pros may be a sign of things to come — Brad certainly hopes so — but for now he is focused on where he is. Before he tries to make another dream come true, he’s just enjoying the one that already has.
“I grew up with OU, and I just love it,” Brad said. “It's my favorite place in the world.”
