The only Puerto Rican to win eight PGA Tour titles, he died at the age of 88.
The player Chichi Rodriguez.
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The great legend of Puerto Rican golf, Juan Antonio ‘Chi Chi’ Rodríguez, and the only Puerto Rican to win the PGA professional tour eight times, died today. He is 88 years old.
The details of the death of this golf star who was born in Rio Piedras on October 23, 1935 have not been given.
“Chi Chi”, who got his nickname in his youth when he used to play the game of baseball, scored his first professional victory on the PGA Tour in 1963, at the Denver Open Invitational.
His other major victories were the Lucky International Open (1964), Western Open (1964), Texas Open (1967), Sahara Invitational (1968), Byron Nelson Classic (1972) and Tallahassee Open (1979).
His good style on the green, using his sticks like a jovial fencer, made him famous at home in one of his presentations. It’s beautiful, but it’s also good in the field.
‘Chi Chi’ represented Puerto Rico 12 times in the World Cup of golf.
He is a great ambassador for the Island, having his first contact with the sport that made him famous, when he was almost eight years old when he started working as a ‘caddy’, a task that he later continued to age that 19. in the field of Dorado, after two years in the Armed Forces.
At the end of the 1980s, ‘Chi Chi’ began his entry into the senior category and after a drought of victories, he once again became famous in a new stage, but this time in the Senior circuit of the PGA Tour, achieved some. 22 victories. In 1987 he had seven wins.
In Puerto Rico he became a promoter of golf and served as an example to the great athletes currently active on the PGA Tour circuit.
He was inducted into the Golf Hall of Fame in 1992. He was the only Puerto Rican there.
One of the first to reveal the death of ‘Chi Chi’ Rodríguez was Penepé senator Carmelo Ríos in a post on social networks.
“This afternoon I received the sad news that my friend and the glory of Puerto Rico, Juan Chi Chi Rodríguez, went to live with the Lord. and the game of golf in Puerto Rico I will remember his advice, the his goodness to me, to my family and I will remember the great man he was once peace to endure a sad event “, he declared.
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