Brad Dalke

In 1947, Brad Dalke's grandfather, Ken Pryor, became an iconic figure for the Oklahoma college basketball team. Pryor made one of the biggest shots in Sooner basketball history as his jump shot with 10 seconds remaining lifted the team over Texas and into the national championship game. Oklahoma lost that game to Holy Cross but Pryor became a Sooner legend.
Twenty-seven years later, Pryor's daughter, Kay, joined the University of Oklahoma's inaugural intercollegiate women's golf team and was the team's top finisher at the Texas Women's University Invitational. The next year, Kay met Bill Dalke, who was a redshirt linebacker on coach Barry Switzer's first national championship football team. The two married and had seven children who would all be big OU fans.
One of them lived out a dream to become the family's third generation to play for the Sooners. It was no surprise that Brad, the youngest of the seven, would play for Oklahoma. His earliest baby pictures show him decked out in Sooner clothing. ?I grew up with OU, and I just love it,? Brad told the OU Daily paper last year. ?It's my favorite place in the world.?
At an early age, he showed unbelievable skill in golf. At 11 months, he was hitting golf balls with a beautiful, flowing swing, using his dad?s club tucked under his armpit. In his first tournament at 3, he shot 1 under over three holes set at his distances, breaking the previous record by seven strokes. As a junior, he won several important events, including the 2011 AJGA Thunderbird Invitational at age 13, 2013 AJGA Ping Invitational and the 2013 AJGA CB&I Invitational. He was a member of the 2014 USA Junior Ryder Cup Team that won in Scotland.
Before all of that, Dalke was able to achieve the first part of a childhood dream. At age 12, he already knew that he wanted to play college golf. When he read that 13-year-old quarterback David Sills had committed to play football at USC, it gave him the idea to call Oklahoma's golf coach, Ryan Hybl, and ask about the possibility of playing for OU. Soon afterward, the two met and Hybl was very impressed with the 12-year-old. By the time Dalke started seventh grade, he was committed to play for Oklahoma.
He graduated a year early and in the summer of 2015 won the PGA Junior Championship, shooting a second-round 62. The win earned an exemption to play in the 2016 Valero Texas Open where he missed the cut. Dalke also did something that not many 17-year-olds would do at a junior invitational at Sage Valley: Rory McIlroy was a guest clinician and accepted a challenge from Dalke to an arm-wrestling match. Dalke beat McIlroy, leaving an impression on Rory.
In Dalke's freshman year, he played in 13 events with his best finish coming at the Ka'anapali Classic Collegiate Invitational in Maui, Hawaii, where he carded a 206 to grab second place. Alongside teammate Max McGreevy, he finished T-26th in the NCAA Championships to help the Sooners to match play for the first time in school history. In the summer of 2016, he reached the finals of the U.S. Amateur, where he lost to Curtis Luck 6 & 4, but earned invitations to compete in the 2017 Masters and U.S. Open.
For many golfers, an invitation to play Augusta National before their 20th birthday would be beyond their wildest dreams. But Dalke found himself on the course long before that. He and his father had been invited by a club member to play in December of 2014. They played 18 holes and then were given a tour of the historic grounds, including a trip to Augusta's wine cellar and a first look at the cabinet table made from the Eisenhower Tree that had fallen in a severe ice storm. On that day, Brad shot 76, playing his final 13 holes in one over par. At the time, he envisioned himself playing one day in the Masters. Like his dream of playing golf for OU, his Masters dream will be realized this year.
Dalke just finished his sophomore season at Oklahoma, where he is majoring in communications.
He followed his missed cut at the Masters with a T-10th finish in The Maxwell, T-9th showing in the Big 12 Championship and a victory in the NCAA Stanford Regional, where he held off Stanford senior Maverick McNealy. Dalke's biggest thrill was helping the Sooners win their second NCAA golf title, defeating defending champion Oregon, 3-1-1, in the team match-play final at Rich Harvest Farms. Oklahoma's title came down to the anchor match as Dalke beat Oregon's Sulman Raza, the hero of the 2016 NCAA final, 2 and 1.