Juan “Chi Chi” Rodriguez, a Corridor of Fame golfer whose antics on the greens and galvanizing life story made him among the many sport’s hottest gamers throughout a protracted skilled profession, died Thursday. He was 88.
Rodriguez’s loss of life was introduced by Carmelo Javier Rios, a senator in Rodriguez’s native Puerto Rico. He did not present a reason behind loss of life.
“Chi Chi Rodriguez’s ardour for charity and outreach was surpassed solely by his unbelievable expertise with a golf membership in his hand,” PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan mentioned in an announcement. “A vibrant, vibrant character each on and off the golf course, he shall be missed dearly by the PGA Tour and people whose lives he touched in his mission to offer again. The PGA Tour sends its deepest condolences to your complete Rodriguez household throughout this troublesome time.”
He was born Juan Antonio Rodriguez, the second oldest of six kids, in Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico, when it was blanketed with sugar cane fields and the place he helped his father with the harvest as a baby. The realm is now a dense city panorama, a part of San Juan, the capital of the U.S. island territory.
Rodriguez mentioned he realized to play golf by hitting tin cans with a guava tree stick after which discovered work as a caddie. He claimed he might shoot a 67 by age 12, in keeping with a biography supplied by the Chi Chi Rodriguez Administration Group in Stow, Ohio.
Nobody from Puerto Rico had ever made it to the PGA Tour and Rodriguez was decided to not solely get there however to beat the very best. “They informed me I used to be a hound dreaming about pork chops,” he as soon as informed Sports activities Illustrated.
He served within the U.S. Military from 1955-57 and joined the PGA Tour in 1960 and gained eight occasions throughout his 21-year profession, enjoying on one Ryder Cup workforce.
The primary of his eight tour victories got here in 1963, when he gained the Denver Open. He adopted it up with two the subsequent yr and continued by 1979 with the Tallahassee Open. He had 22 victories on the Champions Tour from 1985-2002, and had complete mixed profession earnings of greater than $7.6 million. He was inducted into the PGA World Golf Corridor of Fame in 1992.
His enjoying file would not appear to be Corridor of Fame materials. He contributions to the sport together with his showmanship and charity and devotion to youth improvement was gigantic.
He began an academy for youngsters within the Tampa, Florida, space within the Seventies, specializing in those that have been in danger. “Why do I like youngsters a lot? As a result of I used to be by no means a child myself. I used to be too poor to essentially have a childhood,” Rodriguez as soon as mentioned.
And his humour by no means left him. He had a ardour for baseball, and when the U.S. Senior Open went to Canterbury exterior Cleveland in 1996, he was requested why he was why he gave up the game. “I used to steal bases,” Rodriguez mentioned because the room erupted in laughter.
Rodriguez was maybe greatest identified for fairway antics that included twirling his membership like a sword, generally known as his “matador routine,” or doing a celebratory dance, typically with a shuffling salsa step, after making a birdie putt. He typically irritated fellow gamers in what he insisted was meant as good-natured enjoyable.
Lately, he spent most of his time in Puerto Rico, the place he was a associate in a golf neighborhood undertaking that struggled amid the recession and housing disaster, hosted a chat present on an area radio station for a number of years, and appeared at varied sporting and different occasions.
