YouTube star near the top on DP World Tour. So here’s a YouTube-style story

“It’s been obviously extremely fun last couple days,” Dalke said in a press conference afterward. “I think ball striking, I’ve hit it well enough to to score well and haven’t hit it perfect by any means, but I’ve been making a lot of putts and I think there was three or four putts in the last two days kind of on holes maybe I was struggling a little bit — needed a 10-footer for par or something — and I feel like I’ve made every single one of those putts just to kind of keep momentum going.

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“And obviously yeah, I haven’t played a whole lot of competitive golf in the last three years so I didn’t really know what to expect — how my body would react, how my mind would react to all this — and I’ve been nervous, but I’ve played a lot of competitive golf in in my past life and it’s kind of kicked in so it’s been a lot of fun.”

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That’s for the circumstances around why Dalke is leaving popular YouTube Golf group Good Good, which he revealed last week in a 19-minute video posted to his personal channel. In it, he said that his wife, Abbie, had an “eye stroke” last December that left her with vision loss in her left eye, and tests revealed the stroke was due to a hole in her heart, for which she underwent surgery last month.

This week, though, she traveled with Dalke to the tournament.

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“I just feel like I didn’t live up to par when it comes to being a husband for Abbie during this whole process, and that kills me inside,” Dalke said. “And I hate it and I don’t want to be that way anymore. I want to be here for her more. I want to travel less. And I just think in this life in general but also in this industry, you can get pulled in so many different directions. You have to film here, you have this obligation here, you got to go golf with someone here — you got to go do all these things, and I just want to be centered with Abbie. I want to be centered with our future family. I just want to spend time with my wife and be present with my wife, because if there’s anything these last eight months have taught me, it’s that life can change in the blink of an eye, and I don’t want to let that pass because I was traveling.

“I want to be here with her. I want to be present. I want to be centered with her. She’s my girl. She’s my everything. She’s my rock. I hate the fact that she has had to go through all of this, and I hate the fact she has had to go through a lot of this a lot of the time without her husband. And I don’t want that to happen again.”

Below is his video.

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This week, while playing in a field that included major winners, PGA Tour pros, LIV Golf pros and DP World Tour pros, Dalke had the opportunity to show that he and his YouTube Golf mates could at least hang. Dalke, though, is accomplished. He played on a national-championship winning team while at the University of Oklahoma, and he was the runner-up at the 2016 U.S. Amateur, before yips with his swing slowed him.

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YouTube play, though, helped him “learn how to have fun with golf again,” he said Friday. And he said he felt some pressure this week to represent that brand.

“The thing is, there’s some really good golfers in YouTube golf,” Dalke said. “I think we’re starting to show that with my performance so far here, Ryan Ruffels a couple months ago [at the PGA Tour’s OneFlight Myrtle Beach Classic]. A lot of guys have some really good pasts with golf and and performing in tournaments, and I’d like to say I was a good junior golfer and then struggled with some driver issues for a while and I just couldn’t really get over that. And luckily going to YouTube for me kind of helped me learn how to have fun with golf again and get through that tough time. And now I feel like I’m playing some really great golf and I have been for the last year and a half.

“And it’s cool to be able to come out here and show that I can do it in a tournament as well. And obviously there’s still two days left, a lot of golf left, but it’s been a little pressure, but I’m proud of myself for the way I’ve handled it the first couple days.”

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Could the Dalke method work for others? He had some thoughts of whether someone could play YouTube Golf, then play pro events.

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“[When I] got to pro golf, knew I needed to do work on things, grind on things, and I worked really hard, and it didn’t get any better,” Dalke said. “It actually got worse, and that’s why I kind of ended up getting into YouTube. So for me, honestly, in ways, especially with ball striking, the less practice the better, less overthinking. Obviously I still have to make sure my swing’s in good spots, but not just going out and grinding for five hours a day, ball striking-wise. Putting and chipping, I’ve been putting a lot more work in as of late trying to get that ready.

“But for me, I love to go play golf on the course; that’s how I get better. And obviously playing on YouTube, even though we’re filming, we’re playing a lot of golf. It’s not for everybody, but for me, I feel like YouTube’s almost better for my game because I get to go out there on the course, play a lot of golf. I’m not a range rat where I’m just going and hitting hours and hours of golf balls every day. So I think really it’s different for everybody, but for me, YouTube’s actually, I think, very good for my game.”

Could there be a future where players would opt for YouTube over tour play? In Dalke’s case, he’s playing this week on a sponsor exemption, and he’ll do so again later this month at the PGA Tour’s Rocket Classic and in mid-November — at a PGA Tour event sponsored by his friends at Good Good.

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“YouTube has been great the last few years,” Dalke said. “And I’m at the point now where I’m doing well enough on YouTube, I don’t need to go grind through PGA Tour Americas. Korn Ferry, like that’s not what I want to do because there is not a whole lot of money in that and is very stressful and a lot of travel and so it’s a point of I’m in a good spot with YouTube. I’m not going to grind my way up.

“But if I were to come to an event like this and play well and somehow kind of build off that or playing in the Rocket Classic in a month, if I do well there and kind of build off that, if I got a tour card, that’d be awesome. That’d be sick. I would play 100 percent. That’s been my dream since I was little is to play competitive golf. And my game’s finally in a spot now where I feel like I can do that and do it well. So it’s a yes, I would play if I got a tour card, I would 100 percent do that.”

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Can Dalke duplicate his play Saturday and Sunday? Maybe. Maybe not. He said he’ll start without expectations. He said he’ll try to have fun.

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How YouTubey.

“That’s one thing I’ve learned a lot from YouTube is when I’m out there just having a good time, that’s usually when I play my best,” Dalke said. “So no expectations. Go have a great time. If I have a great day, awesome. If I have a terrible day, it is what it is. It’s golf. It’s a hard game. So just go out there and have a great time. No expectations and see what we can do.”

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On X, Dalke did weigh in on one thought.