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 an extended skilled profession, died Thursday. He was 88.
Rodriguez’s dying was introduced by Carmelo Javier Ríos, a senator in Rodriguez’s native Puerto Rico. He did not present a reason behind dying.
“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, colourful persona 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 entire 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 sugarcane fields and the place he helped his father with the harvest as a toddler. 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 mentioned he might shoot a 67 by age 12, in accordance 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 one of the 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 to 1957 and joined the PGA Tour in 1960, successful eight instances throughout his 21-year profession and enjoying on one Ryder Cup staff.
The primary of his eight tour victories got here in 1963, when he gained the Denver Open. He adopted it up with two the following 12 months and continued via 1979 with the Tallahassee Open. He had 22 victories on the Champions Tour from 1985 to 2002 and had whole mixed profession earnings of greater than $7.6 million. He was inducted into the PGA World Golf Corridor of Fame in 1992.
His enjoying report would not appear to be Corridor of Fame materials. His contributions to the sport along with his showmanship and charity and devotion to youth growth was gigantic.
He began an academy for kids within the Tampa, Florida, space within the Seventies, specializing in those that have been in danger. “Why do I really 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 humor 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 gave up the game. “I used to steal bases,” Rodriguez mentioned because the room erupted in laughter.
Rodriguez was maybe finest recognized for fairway antics that included twirling his membership like a sword, generally known as his “matador routine,” or doing a celebratory dance, usually with a shuffling salsa step, after making a birdie putt. He usually imitated fellow gamers in what he insisted was meant as good-natured enjoyable.
He was hospitalized in October 1998 after experiencing chest pains and reluctantly agreed to see a physician, who informed him he was having a coronary heart assault.
“It scared me for the primary time,” Rodriguez recalled in a 1999 interview with The Related Press. “Jim Anderson [his pilot] drove me to the hospital, and a staff of medical doctors have been ready to function. If I had waited one other 10 minutes, the physician mentioned I might have wanted a coronary heart transplant.
“They name it the widow-maker,” he mentioned. “About 50 p.c of the individuals who get this sort of coronary heart assault die. So I beat the percentages fairly good.”
After his restoration, he returned to competitors for a few years however phased out his skilled profession and devoted extra of his time to group and charity actions, such because the Chi Chi Rodriguez Youth Basis, a charity primarily based in Clearwater, Florida, based in 1979.
In recent times, he spent most of his time in Puerto Rico, the place he was a accomplice in a golf group challenge 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 numerous sporting and different occasions.
He confirmed up on the 2008 Puerto Rico Open and strolled via the grounds in a black leather-based coat and darkish sun shades, shaking fingers and posing for photos however enjoying no golf. “I did not need to take a spot away from younger males attempting to make a residing,” he mentioned.
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