Juan “Chi Chi” Rodriguez, a Hall of Fame golfer, died on Thursday at age 88.
Rodriguez’s death was announced by Carmelo Javier Ríos, a senator in Rodriguez’s native Puerto Rico. No cause of death was provided.
No one from Puerto Rico had ever made it to the PGA Tour, and Rodriguez was not only determined to get there, but to beat the best.
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“They told me I was a hound dreaming about pork chops.” He once told Sports Illustrated.
Rodriguez learned to play golf by hitting tin cans with a guava tree stick and found work as a caddie. According to a biography provided by the Chi Chi Rodriguez Management Group, he claimed he could shoot a 67 by age 12.
Before joining the PGA Tour in 1960, he served in the U.S. Army from 1955 to 1957. Rodriguez won eight times during his 21-year career and played on one Ryder Cup team.
Following his PGA career, he played on the Champions Tour from 1985-2002 and won 22 times on that tour. His total combined career earnings were more than $7.6 million.
He was best known for antics that included twirling his club like a sword, or doing a celebratory dance, often 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 outreach was surpassed only by his incredible talent with a golf club in his hand,” PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan said in a statement. “A vibrant, colorful personality both on and off the golf course, he will be missed dearly by the PGA Tour and those whose lives he touched in his mission to give back. The PGA Tour sends its deepest condolences to the entire Rodriguez family during this difficult time.”
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Rodriguez started a children’s academy in the Tampa-area with a focus on kids who were at risk. As he got older, he devoted much of his time towards community and charity activities, such as the Chi Chi Rodriguez Youth Foundation.
He had a near-death experience a little over 25 years ago when he was hospitalized in October 1998 after experiencing chest pains. He reluctantly agreed to see a doctor, who told him he was having a heart attack.
“It scared me for the first time,” Rodriguez recalled in a 1999 interview with The Associated Press. “Jim Anderson (his pilot) drove me to the hospital, and a team of doctors were waiting to operate. If I had waited another 10 minutes, the doctor said I would have needed a heart transplant.
“They call it the widow-maker,” he said. “About 50% of the people who get this kind of heart attack die. So, I beat the odds pretty good.”
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 recession and housing crisis, and hosted a talk show on a local radio station for several years.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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