Parker Coody gave up Charles Schwab Challenge spot to stay on Korn Ferry Tour, but now he’s here

One year ago, Parker Coody stood in a Korn Ferry Tour locker room on a natural high from a fifth-place finish that changed his season. He was exhausted from a whirlwind week in Kansas City that began with a dew-sweeping Monday qualifier tee time on maybe five hours of sleep, but he had mere minutes to decompress. He had a phone call to make, and quickly.

Coody had received a sponsor exemption to compete at the Charles Schwab Challenge, a massive opportunity for the hometown kid, less than a year into his nascent professional career. Coody, a vivacious viewer of PGA TOUR broadcasts throughout his life, had long envisioned himself tackling the venerable Colonial Country Club in competition.

Yet Coody knew what his breakthrough week in Kansas City meant. His limited success before that week, on conditional status, meant a return to PGA TOUR Canada was likely imminent. Things were different now. His tie for fifth at the AdventHealth Championship meant a full summer ahead on the Korn Ferry Tour, with a chance to earn a PGA TOUR card. So he made the call from Blue Hills Country Club’s locker room. He would give back a PGA TOUR exemption to remain on the Korn Ferry Tour for the following week’s Visit Knoxville Open – and beyond.

Charles Schwab Challenge Tournament Director Michael Tothe immediately understood.

“Look, this isn’t going to be your last opportunity to play Colonial,” Tothe told Coody. “Hopefully you come back and play it next year.”

Coody proved Tothe correct, flipping a switch in his game from that point forward. After four missed cuts in five starts, the T5 in Kansas City was the first of five top-five finishes in a 10-event span. That vaulted him from No. 171 to No. 19 on the season-long standings, and he held onto a top-30 spot at season’s end to earn 2024 PGA TOUR membership.

This week, Coody will compete at Colonial. There’s no conflict of interest, no parallel opportunity to surrender. Coody received a sponsor exemption to compete at this week’s Charles Schwab Challenge, one year later than originally planned but perhaps even more special.

Coody, 24, has moved up the PGA TOUR Pathways ranks in (mostly) textbook fashion. He finished No. 13 on the inaugural PGA TOUR University Ranking in 2022 to earn PGA TOUR Canada membership that summer. He finished No. 12 on PGA TOUR Canada’s season-long Fortinet Cup standings, including a 27-under performance to win in Manitoba. He survived the gauntlet of Q-School’s Second Stage that fall – “one of the most stressful tournaments you’ll ever play,” he said. “People build it up, and it’s all it’s built up to be.”

That textbook had one ripped page, though. Coody finished 107th at Q-School’s Final Stage in November 2022, meaning an uncertain playing schedule for 2023. He made just one cut in his first five starts, the Veritex Bank Championship, but that Sunday in the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex was perhaps the low point of his professional career to date. Coody began the final round in fifth place, needing just a top-25 finish to advance to the next event (and likely something similar to cement his schedule via the reshuffle). What started as a potentially life-changing day at Texas Rangers Golf Club, though, became nightmare fuel. Bogeys at Nos. 2 and 3 were followed by a triple bogey at No. 4, and he managed just one birdie after the first hole on one of the Korn Ferry Tour’s most generous scoring layouts. His 5-over 76 was the day’s worst score by two shots, and he tumbled 47 places on the leaderboard to a nondescript T52 finish.

It meant his season was no longer secure, and a return to PGA TOUR Canada for the summer was in the realm. Coody was in a state of shock as he flew to Florida for the LECOM Suncoast Classic’s Monday qualifier. He failed to advance, and he missed the cut the next week in Huntsville, Alabama. Time was ticking, and his confidants were starting to field difficult questions: What was going on?

Coody is grateful for his esteemed inner circle, which he shares with his twin brother Pierceson, also a 2022 University of Texas graduate and 2024 PGA TOUR rookie. It includes his grandpa Charles Coody (a veteran of 1,110 TOUR-sanctioned starts and the 1971 Masters champion) and established TOUR pros like Scottie Scheffler and Will Zalatoris.

Pierceson Coody was the more-hyped twin to that point in their pro career (he finished atop the 2022 PGA TOUR University Ranking and was already a Korn Ferry Tour winner), but the messaging from their circle to the outside world was always consistent: Parker had a TOUR-level game as well. Everyone was just anxious for it to show in competition, including his twin brother (younger by 37 minutes).

“I probably cared a little too much what he was doing,” admitted Pierceson Coody. “There were a few pairings where I had to watch his entire round, and that was not fun … I watched some ugly back nines he had at the beginning of the season. I had been asked by several people … media, fans, sponsors, pro-am partners, ‘Why do you think Parker’s not doing what you’re doing?’ I just kept telling everyone it was going to click. ‘As good as you think my game is, his is equally as good, and it’s going to click.’

“I’m glad he didn’t make me a liar.”

No lying here. Four weeks after that gutting Sunday at the Veritex, Parker Coody shot three of four rounds in the 60s at THE CJ CUP Byron Nelson outside Dallas, punctuated by a final-round 64 that energized him to fly to the AdventHealth Championship’s Monday qualifier. He opened the door to his Kansas City hotel room at 1:30 a.m. local time, and he was first on the tee at 7:45 a.m. He shared medalist honors with a 66, earning a spot in the field, leading to the fifth-place finish that infused his season.

Coody had planned to circle back to Fort Worth for the Charles Schwab Challenge, but that successful Korn Ferry Tour showing in Kansas City changed everything.

His parking-lot decision to fly to the qualifier – which led to that mixed-feelings but satisfying locker-room phone call – remains a core memory.

“I’ll never forget standing in the parking lot (after THE CJ CUP Byron Nelson) with my dad and agent and caddie; I’m like, ‘What do we do here?’” Coody remembered. “Because I had the spot at Colonial; do I stay here, just practice for the week, because it was a late Sunday, get ready for Colonial … or do I go to Kansas City and try to do the Monday? Because I was probably only two events away from going back to Canada, and that was probably the turning point. ‘Alright, I’m really close to having to go back, and I loved it up there, but I don’t want to go back. I want to play the Korn Ferry Tour.’”

One year later, Coody is a Korn Ferry Tour graduate and a PGA TOUR member. He has made eight cuts in 13 starts this season, and he stands No. 135 on the FedExCup standings – some work to do for a top-70 finish after the Wyndham Championship to qualify for the FedExCup Playoffs, but well within striking distance.

Had he stuck around to prepare for last year’s Charles Schwab Challenge, how would things have unfolded? Who’s to say? He committed to the process of earning his TOUR card through its Pathways, and he executed.

“To this date,” he described his trip to Kansas City, “the best decision I’ve made in my golf career.”