Juan “Chi Chi” Rodriguez, a Corridor of Fame golfer whose antics on the greens and provoking life story made him among the many sport’s hottest gamers throughout a protracted skilled profession, died Thursday. He was 88.

Rodriguez’s demise was introduced by Carmelo Javier Ríos, a senator in Rodriguez’s native Puerto Rico. He didn’t present a reason for demise.

“Chi Chi Rodriguez’s ardour for charity and outreach was surpassed solely by his unimaginable expertise with a golf membership in his hand,” PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan stated in an announcement. “A vibrant, colourful character each on and off the golf course, he shall be missed dearly by the PGA Tour and people whose lives he touched in his mission to offer again. The PGA Tour sends its deepest condolences to your complete Rodriguez household throughout this tough time.”

He was born Juan Antonio Rodriguez, the second oldest of six youngsters, in Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico, when it was blanketed with sugar cane fields and the place he helped his father with the harvest as a baby. The realm is now a dense city panorama, a part of San Juan, the capital of the U.S. island territory.

Rodriguez stated he realized to play golf by hitting tin cans with a guava tree stick after which discovered work as a caddie. He claimed he may shoot a 67 by age 12, based on a biography supplied by the Chi Chi Rodriguez Administration Group in Stow, Ohio.

He served within the U.S. Military from 1955-57 and joined the PGA Tour in 1960 and received eight occasions throughout his 21-year profession, taking part in on one Ryder Cup crew.

The primary of his eight tour victories got here in 1963, when he received the Denver Open. He adopted it up with two the following yr and continued via 1979 with the Tallahassee Open. He had 22 victories on the Champions Tour from 1985-2002, and had whole mixed profession earnings of greater than $7.6 million. He was inducted into the PGA World Golf Corridor of Fame in 1992.

Rodriguez was maybe greatest identified for fairway antics that included twirling his membership like a sword, generally known as his “matador routine,” or doing a celebratory dance, typically with a shuffling salsa step, after making a birdie putt. He typically imitated fellow gamers in what he insisted was meant as good-natured enjoyable.

He was hospitalized in October 1998 after experiencing chest pains and reluctantly agreed to see a physician, who instructed him he was having a coronary heart assault.

“It scared me for the primary time,” Rodriguez recalled in a 1999 interview with The Related Press. “Jim Anderson (his pilot) drove me to the hospital and a crew of medical doctors have been ready to function. If I had waited one other 10 minutes, the physician stated I’d have wanted a coronary heart transplant.

“They name it the widow-maker,” he stated. “About 50 p.c of the individuals who get this sort of coronary heart assault die. So I beat the percentages fairly good.”

After his restoration, he returned to competitors for a few years however phased out his skilled profession and devoted extra of his time to neighborhood and charity actions, such because the Chi Chi Rodriguez Youth Basis, a charity based mostly in Clearwater, Florida, based in 1979.

In recent times, he spent most of his time in Puerto Rico, the place he was a accomplice in a golf neighborhood challenge that struggled amid the recession and housing disaster, hosted a chat present on a neighborhood radio station for a number of years, and appeared at numerous sporting and different occasions.

He confirmed up on the 2008 Puerto Rico Open and strolled via the grounds in a black leather-based coat and darkish sun shades, shaking arms and posing for photos however taking part in no golf. “I didn’t need to take a spot away from younger males making an attempt to make a residing,” he stated.

___ AP golf: