Wie kann ich Platzhaltervariablen in einem String effizient ersetzen?

function dynStr($str,$vars) {
    preg_match_all("/\{[A-Z0-9_]+\}+/", $str, $matches);
    foreach($matches as $match_group) {
        foreach($match_group as $match) {
            $match = str_replace("}", "", $match);
            $match = str_replace("{", "", $match);
            $match = strtolower($match);
            $allowed = array_keys($vars);
            $match_up = strtoupper($match);
            $str = (in_array($match, $allowed)) ? str_replace("{".$match_up."}", $vars[$match], $str) : str_replace("{".$match_up."}", '', $str);
        }
    }
    return $str;
}

$variables = array("first_name" => "John","last_name" => "Smith","status" => "won");
$string = 'Dear {FIRST_NAME} {LAST_NAME}, we wanted to tell you that you {STATUS} the competition.';
echo dynStr($string,$variables); // Would output: 'Dear John Smith, we wanted to tell you that you won the competition.'

$variables = array("first_name" => "John","last_name" => "Smith","status" => "won");
$string = 'Dear {FIRST_NAME} {LAST_NAME}, we wanted to tell you that you {STATUS} the competition.';

foreach($variables as $key => $value){
    $string = str_replace('{'.strtoupper($key).'}', $value, $string);
}

echo $string; // Dear John Smith, we wanted to tell you that you won the competition.