Douglass and Coody Blow Away PGA West : Senior golf: With wind relatively calm, they shoot a better-ball 63 on the Stadium Course to take a one-stroke Legends lead.

LA QUINTA —  Maybe it was because the wind was relatively calm for the desert--10 to 15 m.p.h.--but the Senior PGA Tour players in the first round of the $1.1-million Liberty Mutual Legends of Golf Friday played the way living legends should.

It had been predicted that the 6,800-yard Stadium Course at PGA West, which has so much water and so many deep traps that the PGA Tour abandoned it after one tournament, would overwhelm the seniors.

Instead, the team of Dale Douglass and Charles Coody played a bogey-free round, shooting a better-ball, nine-under-par 63, and took a one-stroke lead over the teams of Mike Hill and Lee Trevino, and Chi Chi Rodriguez and Jim Dent.

Another shot behind were Gibby Gilbert and J.C. Snead, Al Geiberger and Dave Stockton, and Bob Murphy and Jim Colbert. Seventeen of the 18 teams in the Legends division finished under par.

Douglass, who teamed with Coody to win last year at Onion Creek in Austin, Tex., said two other factors contributed to the low scores: The greens were soft and held shots well, and the tees on some of the tougher holes were moved up.

Close friends, Douglass and Coody have teamed since 1989. They have a plan.

“I don’t worry about how difficult the course is,” Douglass said. “I want to hit the approach within 10 feet (of the pin), and I expect Charles to be inside me.”

They worked it to perfection on No. 1, where Douglass was 10 feet from the cup, Coody four feet. Coody made the birdie, and they never looked back.

Rodriguez said he shot an 85 in the pro-am Thursday. Then 82-year-old Sam Snead gave him a lesson. “He straightened me out in five minutes,” Rodriguez said. “Isn’t he something? There’s never been anyone know this game better.”

Rodriguez contributed five birdies to his round with Dent. Asked what Snead did for him, he laughed and said: “I’m not telling. You’d tell Arnold Palmer.”

Actually, Snead told him he was too tense, advice that the flamboyant Rodriguez seldom needs to hear.

Although Hill and Trevino are only one shot back, they are known as the hospital team. Hill withdrew from two recent events because of recurring back problems, and Trevino’s neck is bothering him.

Hill carried them with seven birdies. “I may wake up in the morning with my back out again, but I played this tough course very well today,” Hill said. “Lee kept talking about his neck hurting.”

After Geiberger and Stockton posted their 65, Geiberger said he was surprised by the low scores. “I predict the going will get tougher,” he said.

In the Legendary division for ages 60-69, which ends with 18 holes today, six teams were under par, led by Jimmy Powell and Orville Moody, who were four under at 68.

The Demaret division, for Snead and other golfers 70 and older, will start its 36-hole tournament today.