Rodriguez Has Heart of a Champion

First Chi Chi Rodriguez called for the children. Five at a time, little girls and boys, freckle-faced some of them, others wearing braces on their teeth and carrying golf balls or golf gloves or golf towels or golf visors, all to be signed by this 63-year-old man who wore an old-fashioned straw hat and who expected some old-fashioned politeness. Pleases and thank yous earned a smile from Rodriguez. Greedy requests to sign two or three items earned a scowl.

“That was a neat putt on No. 9,” one 10-year-old said. “Thank you so much Mr. Rodriguez,” a shy, small girl said.

When all the children had their autographs Rodriguez announced, “Next the ladies, five at a time,” and so the women came forward to get their autographs, or a peck on the cheek or maybe a photograph taken with their hero. And, yes, finally, Rodriguez allowed the men through, the big shots wearing their sponsor badges and some members of the grounds crew who whispered to Rodriguez in Spanish. All stood in a straight line, waiting their turns.

Rodriguez signed for more than a half-hour and he would have stayed longer except that Rodriguez and his wife, Iwalani, had a flight to catch back home to Naples, Fla.

And on this day of immense excitement at the Newport Beach Country Club for the final round of the Toshiba Senior Classic, maybe you’d wonder why all these people were so eager to reach out to Rodriguez. Many of them were missing the golf, as wisecracking Gary McCord missed one easy putt that would have given him the title, before finally sinking another on the fifth playoff hole, so that they could touch Rodriguez.

But sometimes the winner isn’t the most important participant. Sometimes it is the 63-year-old who was speaking from the heart after that heart almost failed him with a finality that still shakes Rodriguez to the core.

Last October Rodriguez suffered a heart attack and then needed surgery to unblock some arteries. For months before the attack, Rodriguez had found his golf game fading, his stamina withering, his feet hurting, his hands becoming so numb that his touch around the greens disappeared.

Iwalani, who will have been married to Chi Chi 35 years on Wednesday, says her husband, like many men, is stubborn. “He hates doctors,” Iwalani said while she sat in a van and waited for her husband. “He just thought he was getting old.” Rodriguez says it more bluntly: “I never trusted doctors. I guess it must be the Indian in me.”

In any case, it was only the persistence of two friends who were in a Sacramento hotel room with Rodriguez, which convinced Rodriguez it was not heartburn causing him to be sick to his stomach, to turn cold and clammy and pale. So off to the hospital Rodriguez went. “And,” Rodriguez said Sunday, “I was lying on the gurney and had a heart attack.”

Sunday afternoon Rodriguez shot a 67, four under par, which was tied for the best round of the day. Rodriguez hasn’t won a tournament since 1993 but said he felt a little shiver of winning excitement when he sank a 40-foot birdie putt on the ninth hole. With a crowd gathered at the 18th hole and with Rodriguez within a shot of the lead at that point, Rodriguez three-putted and finished with a groan.

But what seemed sad at the moment put joy into his heart, Rodriguez said. Because after finishing in a tie for eighth, Rodriguez says, “I plan to win another tournament. I expect to win another tournament.”

This belief was not arrived at easily. Rodriguez said he was “weak like a baby,” for weeks after his surgery. Iwalani says her husband was scared and depressed. He would begin to feel claustrophobic, afraid to fly in his private plane, uncomfortable in strange hotel rooms. “I can’t tell you how many nights where we’ve been out walking in the parking lots in the middle of the night, me in my nightgown, Chi Chi in his pajamas, because he couldn’t stand being inside,” Iwalani explains.

So to have his name on the leaderboard on a Sunday afternoon, where the sky is large and the crowd is noisy and where his feet don’t hurt and his hands feel every dimple of the ball surging up through his putter, this all means to Rodriguez that there is no reason now that he shouldn’t win.

The illness shook Rodriguez to his foundation. Rodriguez said he always expected to live to be 120. He listed grandfathers, cousins, uncles, who had all lived into their 100s. He had never gained weight or lost his conditioning and so this heart attack was a blindside attack.

Now, Rodriguez eats fish and oatmeal. No salt, little fat. “If it tastes good, my doctor says, don’t eat it,” Rodriguez says and then laughs.

Then Rodriguez notices a little boy hiding behind his cart. The boy whispers to Rodriguez in Spanish. Rodriguez motions and the boy hops into the cart and snuggles next to Rodriguez while Rodriguez signs the autographs.

The little boy is named P.J. Lopez. He is 7 years old and is from Norwalk. P.J. whispers that he is a golfer, too, and that he has won 11 trophies for golf. “I have been playing since I was a baby,” P.J. says and Rodriguez nods and says, “This little boy is good. Very good. He is special.” Rodriguez hands P.J. an autographed golf glove which is about the size of five of P.J.’s hands. But P.J. puts on the glove and says, “Chi Chi is my hero. He is the best.”

And only a man with a big, strong heart, can make a connection with a 7-year-old and a 12-year-old, a 30-year-old and an 80-year-old. “Chi Chi is going to play forever,” P.J. says and who can argue? The heart is fixed now. Chi Chi figures he has another good 60 years or so ahead of him.

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Diane Pucin can be reached at her e-mail address: diane.pucin@latimes.com