Rodrigues, "Chi Chi" (Juan)
Golf
b. Oct. 23, 1935, Bayamon, PR
Rodrigues is the only Hall of Fame golfer who never won a major championship. In fact, during his twenty-five years on the PGA tour, he won only eight tournaments and just over $1 million--about $40,000 a year. Then he joined the PGA Senior tour in 1985 and won more than twenty tournaments and $4 million in less than eight years.
Always popular with galleries, the slender, 5-foot-7 Rodrigues could drive tremendous distances. At one time, he sold a leaflet describing the secret of his power for $2.
But Hall of Fame voters didn't elect him for his popularity or driving ability. He was chosen primarily for the vast amount of charitable work he's done for children, in his native Puerto Rico and in Florida.
Rodriguez grew up in poverty. "In my day," he once said, "you drank milk with a fork because you didn't want that glass of milk to run out." As soon as he began making money on the PGA tour in the early 1960s, he established his own pro-am tournament to raise money for a children's hospital in Puerto Rico. Later he established the Chi Chi Rodriguez Youth Foundation, which has raised more than $1 million to help young people in Florida. And, when he retired from golf, he has said he plans to "go back to Puerto Rico and teach poor kids how not to be poor."