Golfer Juan “Chi Chi” Rodriguez, who became a Hall of Famer due to his outrageous antics and inspirational life narrative, departed from this life on Thursday. 88 years old was his age.
His passing was reported by Senator Carmelo Javier Ríos of Puerto Rico, however the cause of death is yet unknown.
According to a statement from PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan, “Chi Chi Rodriguez’s passion for charity and community service was even greater than his incredible skill with a golf club.” “He will be sorely missed by the PGA Tour and everyone whose lives he touched through his aim of giving back. He had a bright and colorful personality both on and off the golf game. The Rodriguez family is the recipient of the PGA Tour’s sincere condolences during this trying time.
Once home to sugar cane fields, Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico, was the birthplace of Juan Antonio Rodriguez. He assisted his father in the harvest as a young boy. That region is now a heavily populated section of San Juan, the capital of the US island territory.
Rodriguez previously said that he used a stick from a guava tree to whack tin cans to learn how to play golf. He eventually got employment as a caddie. A bio from the Chi Chi Rodriguez Management Group in Stow, Ohio, states that he stated he had shot a 67 by the time he was twelve years old.
Rodriguez was focused on defeating the best in the game in addition to his goal of making it to the PGA Tour, where no Puerto Rican had ever participated. At one point, he told Sports Illustrated, “They said I was like a hound chasing dreams of pork chops.”
He was in the U.S. Army from 1955 to 1957 before becoming pro in 1960. Throughout his 21-year career, he won eight times on the PGA Tour and was a member of one Ryder Cup team.
At the Denver Open in 1963, he won his first tour event. The next year, he won two more times, and he kept winning the Tallahassee Open until 1979. He won 22 races on the Champions Tour between 1985 and 2002, grossing over $7.6 million in his career. 1992 saw his induction into the PGA World Golf Hall of Fame.
Even while his playing career may not seem like Hall of Fame material, his showmanship, charitable endeavors, and commitment to young development made a huge impact on the game.
He founded a children’s academy in the Tampa, Florida area for at-risk youth in the 1970s. Why do I adore children so much? mostly because I was never a child. I never really had a childhood because I was so impoverished, Rodriguez once said.
Nor did his sense of humor fade. He loved baseball, so much so that in 1996 when the U.S. Senior Open was held in Canterbury, outside of Cleveland, many questioned him about why he had given up the game. Rodriguez added, “I used to steal bases,” and the room burst out laughing.
The on-course theatrics that Rodriguez was most famous for were perhaps his sword-twirling, sometimes called his “matador routine,” and his jubilant dance, which usually included a shuffling salsa step, after he made a birdie putt. He said it was all in good humor and frequently irritated other participants.
Reluctantly agreeing to see a doctor in October 1998, he complained of chest problems that led to his hospitalization, when a doctor diagnosed him with a heart attack.
In a 1999 interview with the Associated Press, Rodriguez admitted, “It was the first time I truly felt fear.” His pilot, Jim Anderson, rushed him to the hospital, where a team of doctors was ready for surgery. The doctor told him that if he had delayed just ten more minutes, he would have needed a heart transplant.
He stated, “They refer to it as the widow-maker.” Roughly half of those who suffer this type of heart attack end up dead. I thus far exceeded the odds.”
He eventually gave up his professional career and gave more of his time to community and charitable endeavors, such as the Chi Chi Rodriguez Youth Foundation, a nonprofit organization with headquarters in Clearwater, Florida, which was established in 1979, after he successfully recuperated.
He has been residing in Puerto Rico for the majority of the past few years, where he was a partner in a golf community project that had difficulties because of the housing crisis and recession. He appeared at numerous athletic and other events in addition to hosting a discussion show on a nearby radio station for several years.
He did not play golf at the 2008 Puerto Rico Open, but he did go about the grounds wearing a black leather coat and dark sunglasses, shaking hands, and striking photos. “I didn’t want to take a spot away from young men trying to make a living,” he explained.
