Coody carries family legacy into TOUR debut

“That’s what the boys got to see,” said Kyle, who caddied for his father in the competition rounds.

The
Coody twins drifted from golf a couple of years later. They took up
football and other team sports. Kyle, meanwhile, had begun working with
Chris Como, a young teaching professional at a driving range called
Golden Bear Golf Center, and then later at Gleneagles Country Club in
Plano, Texas. When Parker and Pierceson decided to concentrate solely on
golf, Como was there to shape them.

That was long before Como had
clients such as Bryson DeChambeau and Tiger Woods, a television show on
Golf Channel and the Living Room Lab — a house in the Dallas suburb of
Frisco retrofitted with free weights, a squat rack, high-speed cameras,
force plates and launch monitors. But Como still knew good golf stock
when he saw it. Both boys were committed, driven and athletic.

“There’s no real limit of how good they can be,” Como said.

The
brothers excelled at Plano West High School. Parker (the oldest, by 37
minutes) won the 2017 individual title in Class 6A – the largest
classification in Texas high school golf. They had interest from the
best programs in the country. Kyle, their father, had played for Texas
from 1983 to 1987. But he encouraged them to make their own decisions.

They
did just that. Parker and Pierceson, the 14th- and 25th-ranked players
in the Class of 2018, respectively, chose the Longhorns.

The twins
made an immediate impact in Austin. Parker played in four tournaments
as a freshman. Pierceson played in six. Last year, the Coodys were part
of the Texas team that beat a loaded Oklahoma State squad, with Matthew
Wolff and Viktor Hovland, in a thrilling semifinal match of the NCAA
Championship at Blessings Golf Club in Fayetteville, Arkansas.

“It’s been everything that we’ve wanted,” Pierceson said.

Texas
head coach John Fields noticed something right away about the twins.
They reminded him of the Byrum brothers, Curt and Tom, who both won on
the PGA TOUR. The Byrums were teammates with Fields at New Mexico. “They
were tough,” Fields said. They also pushed each other, like Parker and
Pierceson do. And when one does well, the other seems to rise too.

“They seem to kind of feed off each other and each other’s success,” Fields said.

With
his father on his bag and a wider audience watching, Parker is curious
to see how he stacks up. He and Kyle have made a list of goals. One of
them involves embracing the experience that both Parker and Pierceson
hope to enjoy as a long, prosperous career.

“When we turn pro,” Parker said, “we’ll have it all together.”