Chi Chi Rodríguez

1935-

American golfer

Professional golfer Chi Chi Rodríguez has entertained generations of golf fans with his powerful drives, his victory dances, and his wisecracks. Rodríguez has been declared the longest-driving golfer ever on a pound-for-pound basis: The five-foot-seven-inch golfer, who weighed 117 pounds when he began playing on the Professional Golfers' Association (PGA) Tour in his mid-twenties, has been known to hit drives as far as 350 yards and consistently hit over 250 yards. Although he has not won a tour event since 1993 and suffered a major heart attack in 1998, Rodríguez continues to play on the Senior PGA Tour.

Disadvantaged Childhood

Life was hard for Rodríguez's family when he was a child. Rodríguez was the one of six children, and he was the sickliest. He suffered from rickets, a disease caused by vitamin deficiencies, and tropical sprue, and he nearly died of them when he was a preschooler. He still has brittle and sensitive bones as a result, but this did not stop him from participating in sports. In fact, before he became a professional golfer Rodríguez boxed and was a pitcher in a semiprofessional baseball league that included

such skilled players as Roberto Clemente . (Baseball gave Rodríguez the nickname "Chi Chi": he borrowed the name from another player, Chi Chi Flores, who was noted for his hard-working attitude.)

Rodríguez's parents separated when he was seven, and the children stayed with Rodríguez's father, Juan Rodríguez, Sr. He was a manual laborer who never earned more than $18 a week, but the younger Rodríguez remembers how his father shared their meager food with other hungry children. Rodríguez credits his father's example for his own generosity: After he became successful Rodríguez started his own foundation to help disadvantaged children, and he often passes up lucrative sponsored events to appear at charity benefits.

Hard Work

Rodríguez started working in the sugarcane fields for a dollar a day when he was seven, but he soon realized that better, easier money could be made working at the country club nearby. He was too small to carry a full bag of clubs, so he became a fore-caddy, a boy who watched where the customers' balls fell so that they did not have to search for them. For this job he earned 35 cents per round. As soon as he was old enough, Rodríguez became a full caddie and started playing golf himself.

Rodríguez joined the army for two years when he was 19, and then after he was discharged he came back to Puerto Rico and worked as a caretaker on a psychiatric ward. Along the way, he kept improving his golf game, even winning a base championship at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, one year. In 1957 he was hired as head caddie at the Dorado Beach resort in Puerto Rico. A professional golfer named Pete Cooper, who had won ten events on the PGA Tour, was the course pro there, and he recognized Rodríguez's natural talent and worked with him to improve his game.

After three years under Cooper's tutelage, Rodríguez was ready to try the PGA Tour himself. In 1960 Laurance Rockefeller, who was, among other things, one of the owners of Dorado Beach, gave Rodríguez $12,000 to get started, and he and Cooper headed to Michigan to play in the 1960 Buick Open. To everyone's amazement, the newcomer was tied for the lead after the open's ninth hole. His performance slipped at the end and he did not win, but he finished in the money.

The PGA Tour's Leading Comic

In the 25 years that he spent on the PGA tour, Rodríguez won a mere eight tournaments and a little over $1 million, but because of his attitude on the course Rodríguez was better known than his record would indicate. At a time when many golfers' idol was the silent, serious Ben Hogan , Rodríguez wisecracked for his gallery and did victory dances when he sank a putt.

His first signature victory dance, which involved throwing his ubiquitous snap-brimmed Panama hat over the hole, stemmed from an incident that happened when he was playing golf as a caddie. He and another boy were betting on a round. Rodríguez sank a 40-foot putt, but there was a toad in the hole and when the ball hit it, the toad hopped out, taking the ball with it and causing Rodríguez to lose a stroke. So Rodríguez started throwing his hat over the hole so the ball would not hop back out.

Some players on the PGA Tour, however, claimed that Rodríguez's hat messed up the turf around the hole, and he was asked to find another way to celebrate. This was the origin of his matador dance: Rodríguez "slays" the hole with his putter, wipes off the imaginary blood, and slides it with a flourish into his imaginary scabbard.

Into the Sunset with a Swing

In 1985 Rodríguez graduated to the Senior PGA Tour and almost immediately found much more success there than he had on the regular tour. He credits much of this improvement to a putting tip given to him by famed golf teacher Bob Toski, whom he bumped into in an airport in May 1986. Rodríguez has always been an excellent driver, but his putting was never very accurate. Toski told him to stand up straighter and to hit the ball with more downward force when he putts, which helps to eliminate sidespin. After getting that tip Rodríguez went on to win three tournaments in 1986, and in 1987 he won seven, including four in a row, and set the money-winning record for the senior tour. He would never have a year quite as good as 1987 again, but Rodríguez remained one of the dominant players on the senior tour through the early 1990s.

Despite suffering a major heart attack in 1998, Rodríguez continues to play competitive golf and to do all of the charitable work that he can, especially with the 450 abused and neglected children who are served each year by the Chi Chi Rodríguez Youth Foundation. In the grand scheme of things he sees the latter as more important, as he said in an interview with Golf Digest in 2000: "I don't care about how many tournaments I won. Winning tournaments is very important for your ego, but winning the people is very important for your soul…. I want to be remembered as a guy who was the kids' pal."

SELECTED WRITINGS BY RODRÍGUEZ:

Chi Chi's Secrets of Power Golf. New York: Viking, 1967.

(With Chuck Fitt) Everybody's Golf Book. New York: Viking, 1975.

(With John Andrisani) 101 Supershots: Every Golfer's Guide to Lower Scores. New York: Harper & Row, 1990.

Chronology

(With John Anderson) Chi Chi's Golf Games You Gotta Play. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics, 2003.

FURTHER INFORMATION

Periodicals

"Chi Chi: On Helping Kids, the Death of Showmanship, and Why He Just Can't Stop the Music." Golf Digest (March 2000): 178.

Diaz, Jaime. "Chi Chi Has a Last Laugh." Sports Illustrated (November 23, 1987): 38-42.

Friedman, Jack. "At 51, Chi Chi's Still Laughing: Now It's on His Way to the Bank." People Weekly (September 21, 1987): 51-53.

McCoy, Doris Lee. "Golf's Good Samaritan." Saturday Evening Post (March, 1989): 52-53.

Other

"Chat Transcript: Chi Chi Rodriguez." PGATour.com. http://www.pgatour.com/u/ce/multi/pgatour/0,1977,3657960,00.html (January 7, 2003).

"Chi Chi Rodriguez: Biographical Information." PGA Tour.com. http://www.golfweb.com/players/00/20/15/bio.html (January 7, 2003).

Chi Chi Rodriguez Youth Foundation. http://www.chichi.org (January 7, 2003).

"Juan 'Chi-Chi' Rodriguez." Latino Legends in Sports. http://www.latinosportslegends.com/chi-chi.htm (January 7, 2003).

Sketch by Julia Bauder

Awards and Accomplishments