Juan “Chi Chi” Rodriguez has died at the age of 88.
The PGA Tour announced Rodriguez’s death but didn’t give a cause.
The Puerto Rican Senate’s Carmelo Javier Ríos Santiago also posted about the Hall of Fame golfer’s death on social media, writing in Spanish that Rodriguez “has gone to live with the Lord,” and calling him a “great human being.”
Rodriguez did not have the same upbringing that other members of the golf world had. His father worked by cutting sugar cane with a machete, making no more than $18 a week. At the age of 7, the future golfer was working on the plantation as a water carrier, three years after he nearly died from rickets and tropical sprue.
He found his signature sport “after wandering onto a golf course,” the PGA said. He found out that caddies were making more money than he was on the plantation, so he decided to become a caddy, taking a guava tree branch and making it into a golf club. He used hammer tin cans as balls and was able to teach himself how to play.
At the age of 12 he had a 67 in a real golf game, The New York Times reported. He then played in Puerto Rican tournaments.
He served two years in the Army to make money then decided to become a golf professional, joining the PGA in 1960.
Rodriguez would win the Tour eight times over 21 years — the first in 1963 and the last in 1993. He also won the senior tour 22 times, CNN reported.
One of the wins was with the 1973 US Ryder Cup team.
Rodriguez was a unique player, frequently putting his hat over the hole after making a birdie, “so the little birdy won’t fly away,” he said according to the PGA.
“You’ve got to be different,” he told Golf.com. “You’ve got to be yourself in the world. That’s what I always wanted to be.”
“The people come out and pay good money to see golf,” he said. “I think they deserve something extra, and I like to give it to them.”
The PGA Tour called him a “showman on the course, a tireless philanthropist off the course.”
Rodriguez started the Chi Chi Rodriguez Youth Foundation in 1979 to provide counseling, and educational and vocational training for disadvantaged kids. He started the group and funded it because, he said, “I love kids because I never was a kid. I was too poor to be a kid,” the Times reported.
PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan said in a statement, “Chi Chi Rodriguez’s passion for charity and outreach was surpassed only by his incredible talent with a golf club in his hand. 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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