Derek and Ricky Castillo compete over everything, even when it comes to being sick.
“I have the highest fever,” Derek said proudly one day in the clubhouse at Alta Vista Country Club.
He recently moved to the top of the leaderboard with a temperature of 104.7 degrees, and while riding home from the emergency room he called Ricky to make sure he knew his younger brother been bumped to second place.
The siblings also push each other to see who can finish their food first at the table and who can post the lowest score on the golf course. But what might seem like sibling rivalry run amok has allowed their talent to blossom, with the two kids from Yorba Linda among the best youth golfers in the nation. Both won AJGA tournaments, qualified for the U.S. Amateur and locked up Division 1 scholarships before their 16th birthdays.
“We definitely wouldn’t be as good as we are if we didn’t have each other,” said Derek, 18, who will attend UNLV. “We make each other better. That’s why we play together so much. We help each other become better players.”
Ricky, who picked Florida for his collegiate pursuits, is playing well of late. In a span of about a week, the 15-year-old won the L.A. City Championship and the AJGA’s Heather Farr Classic. When Derek saw his brother closing in on the lead at the latter event while following scores on the Internet, he texted his dad, who was at the tournament, to get his updates firsthand.
It’s just one of the examples of how golf has made the brothers’ bond stronger.
“So much so it is crazy,” said Derek, who, as the elder, often drives the two from course to course.
For one season, at least, they’re on the same high school team at Valencia in Placentia – Ricky as a freshman and Derek as a senior. Their father, Mark, was a volleyball coach at the school but switched to golf when he realized he had a chance to work with his sons.
“Not that many parents get to have that close of a relationship with their kids,” he said. “I am not just their coach, I am their parent too.”
It’s because of Mark that the Castillo kids got into golf. Mark, at one time a single-digit handicapper, took Derek to Birch Hills Golf Course in Brea when he was 6 years old. It was Super Bowl Sunday, so they only played the front nine. Mark wanted to get home in time to watch the game, but Derek was so upset he couldn’t play all 18 holes that he didn’t talk to his dad for three hours.
Needless to say, Derek was hooked on golf and soon enrolled in junior camps. His kid brother, meanwhile, started swinging plastic clubs in the backyard.
When he was 6, Derek entered his first junior tournament. Rickey’s first foray into competitive golf came when he was 5 … and lasted all of two holes. The reason? He abruptly decided that he’d rather ride in the golf cart with his grandmother instead. A week later, though, things were different.
“I played in a tournament at Birch Hills, and I played the entire thing,” Ricky recalled. “I loved it.”
While their father has worked extensively with them on their game, the brothers switched to PGA instructor Chris Mason at Maderas Golf Club about a year ago. Range rats they’re not, however, with Derek liking to spend time on the putting green and Ricky typically working on his chipping.
Derek said he has been working hard to get his game in shape before he heads to college in the fall. If a trip to the U.S. Amateur in August at Oakland Hills in suburban Detroit occurs before he heads to Las Vegas, all the better.
“It’s a reality that I’m leaving for college in less than five months, so for 10 months it has been a grind trying to get my game back to where it was when I was being recruited,” Derek said. “I have been getting better now, especially since this kid (Ricky) is getting better.”
Ricky has climbed to No. 17 in the AJGA Polo Rankings and could possibly earn a spot on the West’s Wyndham Cup team, a match-play event featuring the top boys and girls from around the country. He’s currently in the ninth spot on the 10-member team that will be selected in June.
“Neither one is better than the other,” Mark said. “It’s super fun to watch them play when they’re playing well and when they’re not playing well. It has been a dream come true.”
