Juan "Chi Chi" Rodriguez, a Hall of Fame golfer whose antics on the greens and inspiring life story made him among the sport's most popular players during a long career, died Thursday. He was 88; no cause of death was given, per the AP. The golfer was born the second of six children, in Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico, when it was blanketed with sugar cane fields and he helped his father with the harvest as a child. Rodriguez said he learned to play golf by hitting tin cans with a guava tree stick and then found work as a caddie. He claimed he could shoot a 67 by age 12.
Rodriguez served in the US Army from 1955 to 1957 and joined the PGA Tour in 1960. He won eight times during his 21-year career, playing on one Ryder Cup team. The first of his eight tour victories came in 1963, when he won the Denver Open. He had 22 victories on the Champions Tour from 1985 to 2002, with total career earnings of more than $7.6 million. He was inducted into the PGA World Golf Hall of Fame in 1992. Rodriguez was perhaps best known for fairway antics that included twirling his club like a sword, sometimes referred to as his "matador routine," or doing a celebratory dance, often with a shuffling salsa step, after making a birdie putt.
After suffering a heart attack in 1998, he returned to competition for a few years but phased out his professional career and devoted more of his time to community and charity activities. In recent years, he spent most of his time in Puerto Rico, where he was a partner in a golf community project, hosted a talk show on a local radio station, and appeared at various sporting and other events. "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," PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan said in a statement. More on his life here.
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