Jon Rahm wins the Memorial Tournament presented by Nationwide

When the starter welcomes Parker Coody to the first round of the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open, even ardent observers might not recall his berth in the Round of 16 at the 2019 U.S. Amateur, which he made with another Coody, his twin brother Pierceson. That's right. One-eighth of the players remaining at the historic Pinehurst Resort last year were Coodys. This year, Pierceson won the Western Amateur, considered by many to be the second-biggest prize in amateur golf, and Parker won one of the top collegiate events, the Southern Highlands Collegiate. That latter accomplishment came with a special perk: a sponsor exemption into this week's PGA TOUR event. But victories in prestigious amateur events earn the attention of only a small sliver of golf fans. If the Coody name sounds familiar, it is likely for another reason. A win that came almost 50 years ago, but that is commemorated annually with the Champions Dinner at Augusta National. It was in 1971 when their grandfather won the Masters Tournament. Charles Coody, a U.S. Air Force veteran from the small West Texas town of Stamford, beat Jack Nicklaus and Johnny Miller by two strokes that spring in Georgia. It was the last of three titles Charles won in a career that spanned 629 starts. Charles' grandson is now making his first. And Charles' son, Kyle, who played at Texas and a couple of times on the PGA TOUR, will caddie for his son at TPC Summerlin. "I want to play as well as I can and see where I stack up," Parker said from Austin. He knows the learning curve will be steep. "I think one of the things I try to work on is having zero expectations. There's nothing else I can do." What would Charles tell his grandson now, on the eve of his PGA TOUR debut? The same thing he told Parker's brother long ago, when the family was gathered for a wedding at Barton Creek, a big resort and private club in the hills west of Austin. Parker and Pierceson were on the driving range, and Pierceson was having a hard time, as boys learning the golf swing do. Charles thought about what to do. He thought even more carefully about how to do it. "I just went over and sat down with him and encouraged him," he said. He wasn't being a retired TOUR pro with sage advice. He was being a grandfather. "All you've got to do is believe in yourself," he told Pierceson that day. He would tell Parker the same thing now. Parker intends to represent his family with integrity this week, regardless of strokes lost or gained. He is conscious of the Coody legacy but not consumed by it. It's a lineage that dates back to 1950, when Charles watched the annual invitational at Colonial Country Club, now known as the Charles Schwab Challenge. He watched Sam Snead win and was immediately mesmerized. The experience changed his life. Charles, an only child, taught himself to play on a nine-hole course that had "more rocks than grass," he said last week from his home in Abilene, where he lives in retirement with his wife of 60 years, Lynette. "But I'm just so thankful it was there." He and Don Massengale of Jacksboro, Texas, formed the core of the freshman team at TCU in the fall of 1955. Charles enlisted in the military after college, joined the TOUR in 1963 and won all three of his titles in the span of seven years, from 1964 (the Dallas Open) to the Masters. Colonial was one of his favorite stops on the PGA TOUR, right up there with the Masters. He played it for 25 consecutive years and had his chances to win. He finished second there once. "I have four or five disappointments in my PGA TOUR career, and that was one of them," Charles said. Another disappointment: No spectators were allowed at the Colonial Collegiate Classic the last week of September, which means Charles and Lynette, whom the grandchildren call "Ditty," were unable to watch Parker and Pierceson play. The Longhorns finished second. Pierceson shot 66-74-69, good for second individually. So many seconds for the Coody clan at Colonial. Parker shot even par, including a final-round 67, and finished fifth, one shot behind his brother and just three behind the winner, Oklahoma's Logan McAllister. Charles turned 83 in July. He left professional golf in 2006. By then he had made 38 starts in the Masters. In his last appearance, he brought his 6-year-old grandsons as his caddies in the Par-3 Contest, when the old champions try to reclaim a little Augusta glory, one short iron and green slope at a time. The twins got white overalls, just like the grownups. It was quite a moment for the Coody family. That Thursday, their 69-year-old grandfather labored to an opening 89. He was a stroke under par after 15 holes in the second round. A knowing crowd gathered to watch him finish. He climbed the famous hill at No. 18 to a sincere greenside reception, the kind the patrons in Augusta unfailingly give to the end of a Masters career. "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." This week could have ramifications for Parker's pro career. Not only could it give him good exposure, but he can earn valuable points for PGA TOUR University. Unveiled earlier this year, that program ranks players based on results in collegiate and professional events during their final two years of college golf. Players in the top five of the rankings after their fourth season earn exempt status on the Korn Ferry Tour, while Nos. 6-15 receive starts on the PGA TOUR's international circuits. Back home in Abilene, their grandparents will follow his progress from afar. In the den in their home hangs a portrait of a tall, dark-haired man in a green jacket "who even walks with a drawl," Dan Jenkins wrote for Sports Illustrated after the 1971 Masters. Coody knows he was no Nicklaus or Miller. "I just play along in living black and white," he told Jenkins. He doesn't play at all anymore. Charles had hip surgery recently and just doesn't get around the way he used to. He suffered a stroke in 2018 that diminished his eyesight, so it's hard for him to follow a ball in the air. He's asked Kyle to text him Parker's score on every hole this week at TPC Summerlin. He imagines it'll help him feel like he's walking along, witnessing each little triumph and disappointment. He will, as he often does, remember with gratitude the bonds that golf has formed in his family. Golf gave him a way to spend time with his grandsons on terms everyone understood and no one took for granted. They've played so many rounds at Diamondback National, the public course in Abilene that Charles designed and owned, that he can track the progress of Parker and Pierceson through certain basic benchmarks: the first time he saw them record a par to take the honor on the next tee, the first time they outdrove him, the first time they beat him. "I have a lot of beautiful memories of playing with the boys," Charles said. More memories will be made this week as Parker takes the next step in his promising career and advances the family's legacy.

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Bay Hill Club & Lodge was an absolute bully at last year's Arnold Palmer Invitational presented by Mastercard. Facing fierce winds on the weekend, the field averaged more than 2.1 strokes over par for the tournament, making it the most difficult course on the PGA TOUR for the 2019-2020 season. It was the first time Bay Hill had yielded a scoring average over 74 since 1983, and the highest winning score in relation to par (-4, Tyrrell Hatton) at the event since '83, as well. Approach play was especially perilous, with the field recording an average proximity to the hole of 54'4", the largest number all season on TOUR. They hit only 50.5% of greens in regulation for the week, the lowest number in any non-major since the 2005 RBC Canadian Open at Shaughnessy Golf and Country Club (49.8%). While last year's conditions made for a tougher test than players normally face in Orlando, there is one statistic about Bay Hill that reveals itself every year, regardless of the weather. Bay Hill annually ranks among the courses with the most approach shots by the field from outside 200 yards. Last season, there were more than 1,800 approaches from that range - most of any course all season. Since 2016, there have been 9,926 approach shots hit from 200 yards out or farther - nearly 3,000 more than the next-closest course in that span (TPC River Highlands at 7,007). Part of the source of this are the long par 3s at Arnie's place: the quartet of holes have an average length of 216.5 yards on the scorecard. That was the longest average length for par 3s on TOUR last season, and ranked second-longest each of the previous two years - the par-3 holes at Corales Golf Club, host of the Corales Puntacana Championship, averaged 230.5 yards on the card in 2018 and 2019. So how have recent winners at Bay Hill fared on these long approaches? Since 2012, they are a combined 44 under par when hitting approach shots (on all holes, regardless of par) from outside 200 yards. In that span, the winner at Bay Hill has a proximity to the hole 4'9" better than the field average that particular week. Three tournament winners in that span beat the field average by 6 feet or more - Tiger Woods in 2013 (6'1"), Matt Every in 2015 (9'9"), and Rory McIlroy in 2018 (16'9"). McIlroy's performance on these particular shots was especially remarkable. In his 2018 win at Bay Hill, McIlroy led the field in approach shot proximity from outside 200 yards. When McIlroy is at his best, this is a pervasive theme. Only eight times in the ShotLink era (a collection of more than 600 tournaments) has a winner averaged less than 35 feet away on approach shots outside 200 yards (minimum 15 attempts). McIlroy has four of those wins. So which of the players in this week's field show promise in this particular statistic? There are more than 180 with 100 or more approach shots from outside 200 yards on TOUR the last 2 seasons. Of that group, you don't have to look far to find a familiar name: this week's defending champion, Tyrrell Hatton, ranks second in average proximity to the hole (44'2") when facing that length of an approach shot. Bryson DeChambeau, who has finished in the top five twice in the last three years at this event, ranks third (44'10"). The leader in this statistic is Will Gordon (43'2"), who makes his Bay Hill debut this week. How about scoring from that distance? Gordon ranks fourth in score to par per attempt (-0.29), best in the field in Orlando. Talor Gooch is another under-the-radar name who performs well in these situations: his score to par per attempt (-0.27) ranks eighth since the start of the 2019-20 season. Sungjae Im is a remarkable 106 under par when faced with these approach shots the last two seasons, 12 shots better than any other player. In a statistical testament to how often he plays, though, he's also had 38 more attempts than anyone else in that span (Im ranks 24th of 185 players in score to par per attempt, at -0.25). Almost every course in professional golf has its own defining characteristics, whether visually, architecturally, or when diving into the numbers. Longer approach shots into greens are a trend to keep an eye on this week at Bay Hill.

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He’s had it for 19 months. In his first round, it was clear he wants to keep it. Tiger opened with a flawless 68. Here’s how it all went down on Day 1 at Augusta National.

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