LIV Golf Tales: Coody foregoes "crazy amount of money"
Pierceson Coody (University of Texas photo)
They already have a teenage Thai phenom and the 2021 U.S. Amateur champion among their ranks. So it should come as no surprise that LIV Golf is making head-scratching offers to top collegiate players.
Ryan French of Firepit Collective and the "Monday Q" Twitter page reported that one of the amateurs in the field of the first LIV Golf event in London received $6 million upfront as well as $250K from the upstart tour with the deep pockets and money to burn.
But as Art Stricklin reported on June 23 for Golf.com, not everybody is taking the bait. Enter one Pierceson Coody, twin brother of Parker, both grandsons of 1971 Masters champion Charles Coody.
Fresh off a win for Texas at the 2022 NCAA Championships, the twins took different roads, with Parker playing in Canada, and Pierceson taking advantage of Korn-Ferry Tour starts earned via his PGA Tour University standing. (He finished 2022 ranked No. 1 ahead of Jacob Bridgeman of Clemson.)
According to Stricklin,
"Coody turned down what he and his father Kyle described as a “multi-million-dollar” offer from the Saudi-financed LIV Golf Series. The deal would have made Pierceson, who earned $31,125 in his first two KFT starts, an instant millionaire, with a chance to get even richer in LIV’s huge-purse, no-cut events."
Hopefully, Coody's decision will influence other top amateurs to think twice, as Coody did, before accepting an offer.
"Seeing that kind of money was kind of a wow moment for me,” Pierceson told Golf.com “It was a crazy amount of money, but I love the American tour. I never saw myself as a LIV golfer, but a PGA Tour golfer.”
Art Stricklin is a great storyteller, and we recommend you read the full article on Golf.com