About Me

My name is Dylan Brack and I am 17 years old from Riverside, CA. I started to show an interest in golf at age 2 ½ - with a plastic toy set. Since I showed an interest in golf, my parents purchased a right handed putter & clubs and cut them down since they were still too big for me. I watched a lot of golf on TV and my parents noticed that I would consistently turn the clubs around to play golf to imitate what was shown on TV. This is how I started playing left-handed even though I am right-handed (like Phil Mickelson).

I started with The First Tee of Pasadena October 2010 at the age of 4 1/2 after one of the employees at a practice course I played at noticed me. The one consistent thing that adults would notice where ever I practiced is my golf swing. I have a natural swing that was not taught to me. After my parents received many comments about my swing everywhere I practiced, they took it upon themselves to find a golf coach to find out if they are crazy or if I really had talent in golf. Now, I know most people are thinking – any coach will tell you that someone has talent just to get the work, but we did find a coach that would give an honest opinion if private lessons were worth it at age 5. The first coach I worked with was Wataru “Watt” Tomita at Brookside GC from April 2011 - July 2013. I started playing U.S. Kids Golf Tournaments at age 5 and placed 2nd in the 2012 Veritas World Junior Golf Championships Boys 6 division.

After First Tee, I became a member of the Tiger Woods Learning Lab Player Development Golf Program in Anaheim, CA from the ages of 7 to 12.

From 2013 - I've been working with Greg Castleman whose resume speaks for itself. Having worked with the likes of Guan Tianlang, Bethany Wu, Elizabeth Wang, Alexa Melton and Angel Yin just to name a few - Greg has coached them to great success in their Junior careers! I'd like to be the next student of Greg's to do so.

What makes my story unique is that I started playing Blades at a very early age. At the end of 2012 my parents decided to purchase Nike Victory Red Pro Combo Irons for the simple fact that you can not “work” a ball with junior clubs. Learning with junior clubs is fine, but if you are playing tournament golf, your whole golf game will change as you get older when you have to switch to adult clubs. In 2014, I won both a local & sub-regional qualifiers for the National Drive Chip & Putt Contest. I competed at the Regionals at Torrey Pines and placed 3rd overall.

After four years of playing with the Nike Victory Red Pro Combo Irons, I retired them in 2016 and now play Titleist Irons.

In 2022, I had the honor of getting invited to compete in the Inaugural Tiger Woods TGR Junior Invitational presented by TaylorMade at Pebble Beach. The two-day event, which 30 boys and 30 girls junior golfers (10 per age division 10-12, 13-15, 16-18), took on two of Pebble Beach’s famed courses. Qualifying matches took place at The Hay, the Tiger Woods and TGR Design reimagined short-course that celebrates Pebble Beach’s rich history. Two rounds at ‘The Hay’ (par 3) 9-hole course, where I shot -4 and -2, then it was one round on The Hay 9 hole putting course where I posted 3 over for a combined total of 69 (-3) which was good enough for 2^nd place by one shot, which moved me on to the Championship Match Play Final at Spanish Bay.

With an early 7:10am tee time at Spanish Bay on a course I had never played before and no time to hit balls – I stepped on to the foggy first tee with no one other than Tiger himself as the official announcer/starter. Unwavering, with Tiger looking on, I crushed his drive down the first hole from which he never looked back – going 2 up thru 2 and with Tiger following the match thru the first 4 holes. I went on to par the 16th hole and close out the match and Win the Championship 3&2.

The most priceless memories for me is shaking Tiger’s hand as I received a signed Finalist flag and for Tiger to announce me on the first tee in the Match Play final. It was an experience I'll never forget. I hope to be invited to play the Genesis Invitational one day soon!

JDZ 3851Vert

I think my golf ability runs in my family. I am ½ Japanese and ½ English. My great grandfather, Yutaka "James" Ihira, (who died on my birthday, four years before I was born) was a champion golfer in Hilo, Hawaii winning the Big Island Amateur Golf Championships in 1938 and 1942. He also won the Big Island AJA (Americans of Japanese Ancestry) Golf title four times in 1953, 1954, 1956 & 1958 and also won the Territorial AJA title in 1955. In 1954 and 1955, he also won the Francis H. I. Brown perpetual Trophy Island of Hawaii Amateur Championship Match Play. When James moved to California in 1963, he continued to play Seniors golf through the Southern California Nikkei Golf Association (SCNGA). I am also a distant relative to Tadd Fujikawa (Playing as an amateur at age 15, Tadd qualified for the 2006 U.S. Open, the youngest golfer ever to do so at the time).