Chi Chi Rodriguez was a World Golf Hall of Famer who won eight PGA Tour events and became known for his antics on the course.
- Died: August 8, 2024 (Who else died on August 8?)
- Details of death: Died at the age of 88.
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Chi Chi Rodriguez’s legacy
Born Juan Antonio Rodriguez in Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico, Rodriguez learned to love golf while caddying as a boy. His father worked in sugar cane fields to earn a few dollars a day, but Rodriguez put himself on a path to leave childhood poverty when he got a job at the local golf course. He soon wanted more than simply caddying while others played golf, so he taught himself to play using a branch from a guava tree to hit tin cans into holes he dug. The unorthodox method turned out to be an effective learning strategy for the young Rodriguez, who shot a 67 on a real course – with a real club – when he was just 12 years old. After a stint in the U.S. Army during the Korean War, he began entering Puerto Rican tournaments.
By 1960, Rodriguez’s profile had risen to the point that he joined the PGA. There, he became a beloved and colorful figure known for his showmanship on the course. One of his early routines involved the straw hats he habitually wore while playing. After getting a birdie, he would drop his hat over the hole and dance around it. He later said he got into the habit after putting into a hole in which a toad was sitting. When the toad hopped out, he said, the ball came out with it, and he lost a bet on the putt. The hat presumably kept his ball in the hole, but it also distracted other players and potentially damaged the green, so he developed another celebratory routine: After a good putt, he would treat his putter like a sword and do what he called a toreador dance, wielding his “sword” at the hole, wiping imaginary blood from its shaft, and then “sheathing” it.
It wasn’t just his theatricality that made Rodriguez a popular PGA Tour member; he was also a skilled golfer. Despite his small frame, he had a powerful swing, and it won him tournaments like the 1963 Denver Open and the 1964 Western Open. After more than two decades of success on the PGA Tour, he joined the Senior PGA Tour, now known as the Champions Tour, in 1985. There, he had 22 wins, two of them majors. In 1992, Rodriguez was inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame, the first Puerto Rican golfer so honored.
At the height of his career, Rodriguez established the Chi Chi Rodriguez Youth Foundation. Located in Clearwater, Florida, it provides education and counseling to at-risk youths, and it includes a school for fourth through eighth grades. Rodriguez said it was important to him to help children because of his own disadvantaged childhood.
Notable quote
“The sword dance is a drama. I am a matador. The hole is a bull. When the ball goes in the hole, I’ve already slain the bull, so the sword fight with the putter isn’t necessary except to flaunt my skill. I wipe the blood from the sword with my handkerchief and return the sword to its scabbard. Then I go to the next hole and look for another bull.” — from a 2003 interview with Golf Digest
Tributes to Chi Chi Rodriguez
Full obituary: The New York Times
