Juan “Chi Chi” Rodriguez, a Hall of Fame golfer, died on Thursday at age 88.
Rodriguez’s death was proclaimd by Carmelo Javier Ríos, a senator in Rodriguez’s native Puerto Rico. No caparticipate of death was provided.
No one from Puerto Rico had ever made it to the PGA Tour, and Rodriguez was not only resettled to get there, but to beat the best.
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Juan Antonio “Chi-Chi” Rodríguez of Puerto Rico contendd in the 1990 Transamerica Senior Golf Championship event of the Senior PGA Tour on October 21, 1990, at the Silverado Country Club in Napa, California. (David Madison/Getty Images)
“They telderly me I was a hound dreaming about pork chops.” He once telderly Sports Illustrated.
Rodriguez lacquireed to carry out golf by hitting tin cans with a guava tree stick and set up toil as a cgraspie. According to a biography provided by the Chi Chi Rodriguez Management Group, he claimed he could shoot a 67 by age 12.
Before combineing the PGA Tour in 1960, he served in the U.S. Army from 1955 to 1957. Rodriguez won eight times during his 21-year atsoft and carry outed on one Ryder Cup team.
Follotriumphg his PGA atsoft, he carry outed on the Champions Tour from 1985-2002 and won 22 times on that tour. His total combined atsoft acquireings were more than $7.6 million.
Juan Chi Chi Rodriguez (R) and his wife Iwalani combine Marc Anthony Concert at Coliseo Jose M. Agrelot on September 11, 2015, in San Juan, Puerto Rico. (GV Cruz/WireImage)
He was best comprehendn for antics that joind twirling his club appreciate a sword, or doing a celebratory dance, normally with a shuffling salsa step after making a birdie putt.
He was inducted into the PGA World Golf Hall of Fame in 1992.
“Chi Chi Rodriguez’s passion for charity and outaccomplish was go beyonded only by his incredible talent with a golf club in his hand,” PGA Tour Coshiftrlookioner Jay Monahan said in a statement. “A vibrant, colorful personality both on and off the golf course, he will be missed dpunctual by the PGA Tour and those whose inhabits he touched in his mission to give back. The PGA Tour sends its meaningfulest condolences to the entire Rodriguez family during this difficult time.”
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Juan “Chi Chi” Rodriguez does his patented dance after sinking a putt at the U.S. Senior Open in 1996. (Bob Stowell/Getty Images)
Rodriguez commenceed a children’s academy in the Tampa-area with a concentrate on kids who were at danger. As he got elderlyer, he promised much of his time towards community and charity activities, such as the Chi Chi Rodriguez Youth Foundation.
He had a proximate-death experience a little over 25 years ago when he was hospitalized in October 1998 after experiencing chest pains. He unwillingly concurd to see a doctor, who telderly him he was having a heart strike.
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Golfer Juan Chi Chi Rodriguez striumphgs and watches the fweightless of his ball during tournament carry out circa 1988. (Focus on Sport/Getty Images)
“It sattfinishd me for the first time,” Rodriguez recalled in a 1999 intersee with The Associated Press. “Jim Anderson (his pilot) drove me to the hospital, and a team of doctors were paparticipateing to function. If I had paparticipateed another 10 minutes, the doctor said I would have insisted a heart transarranget.
“They call it the widow-creater,” he said. “About 50% of the people who get this benevolent of heart strike die. So, I beat the odds pretty excellent.”
In recent years, he spent most of his time in Puerto Rico, where he was a partner in a golf community project that struggled amid the decline and housing crisis, and presented a talk show on a local radio station for disconnectal years.
The Associated Press gived to this alert.
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