Win by Revitalized Chi Chi Would Be Victory for Youth

Chi Chi Rodriguez has a plan. He is going to play golf until he is 100. And you’re going to see him playing the Senior PGA Tour until he is 71.

Why 71?

“Why not?” says Rodriguez.

Of course. After all, 71 is probably just as good as, say, 72 or 70 or 75 or whatever. What you have to understand is that Juan “Chi Chi” Rodriguez is really into numbers.

His father’s parents lived until they were 114. One uncle lived to 108, another until he was 106 and he might have gone on even longer, Rodriguez says, if he hadn’t had 29 wives and 79 kids.

“People think that is a joke,” he said. “It’s not. It’s true.”

And for Rodriguez, who turned 65 Monday, there are some even more impressive numbers--two top-five finishes in his last five Senior PGA Tour events. It has been seven years since Rodriguez won his last tournament, but he believes that is about to change . . . so help him, Panama hat.

“I am going to win again,” he said. “I don’t know when, but it’s going to happen.”

It could even happen as soon as this weekend at Wilshire Country Club, where Rodriguez and 77 others are playing in the $1.4-million SBC Senior Classic. Rodriguez likes Wilshire and its classic, small greens, even though it’s the place where he missed a great chance to win in 1996 before three-putting on the final hole and losing to Gil Morgan by a shot.

But Rodriguez does not hold grudges, against courses or anything else. Two years ago, he had a heart attack before the Raley’s Gold Rush Classic in Sacramento. He was rushed to a hospital and underwent an angioplasty.

He paid attention to what his doctors told him about the recovery period and now says his health is so improved, it’s showing in his game. His diet was changed and red meat was ruled out.

“They said I could have four ounces a month,” he said. “Four ounces a month. Hey, that’s one bite, so I just cut it out.”

Instead, he substituted buffalo and ostrich, fish and turkey and chicken.

That’s a huge improvement over his meals as a kid growing up in the hills near Bayamon, Puerto Rico, where his dad made $18 a week and Chi Chi’s breakfast consisted of nothing but coffee.

As a kid, he hit tin cans with a stick, but he really became interested in golf one day when his brother was pushing him down a hill in a cart. There was a golf course at the bottom of the hill. Rodriguez saw the caddies carrying the bags and thought it looked a lot easier than plowing.

He caddied until he was 19, then enlisted in the Army. When he got out of the service, he worked for awhile in a psychiatric clinic, which prepared him for the rigors of golf as much as anything ever could.

That was eight PGA Tour victories, 22 Senior Tour victories and more than four decades ago, but the essential Chi Chi isn’t much different these days.

He is only 5-feet-7 and 132 pounds and has perfected that act on the green when he waves his golf club as though it were a sword. He says he eats a lot of grain because that’s what elephants do and they’re very strong.

His advice for keeping in shape is simple.

“I lie down a lot,” he said. “You see turtles, how slow they go, and they live to be 750 years old.”

There are those numbers again.

And here are a few more: (727) 726-8829, the Chi Chi Rodriguez Youth Foundation’s phone number that is available for abused children in Clearwater, Fla. And if he ever wins again, which he fully expects to do, Rodriguez said there will be no sword dance, no Panama hat dropped over the hole, no bags tossed into the lake.

“I’ll just give the money to the kids,” he said. “When I win, the kids win. I don’t want any kid to say they can’t do anything. Look at me. If Chi Chi can do it, anybody can do it.”

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The SBC Senior Classic is leaving Wilshire Country Club and moving in 2001, probably to Valencia Country Club. The event is scheduled for March 9-11.

The senior event, which has also been known as the Security Pacific Senior Classic, the Ralphs Senior Classic and the Pacific Bell Senior Classic, has been played at Wilshire since 1995. Valencia staged the 1998 Nissan Open.

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Bruce Fleisher and Tom Jenkins withdrew. Fleisher’s withdrawal gives leading money winner Larry Nelson a little breathing room. Nelson leads with $2.526 million and Fleisher is second with $2.342 million.

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SBC Senior

Classic Facts

* When: Friday-Sunday.

* Where: Wilshire Country Club (6,610 yards, par 71), Los Angeles.

* Purse: $1.4 million.

* Winner’s share: $210,000.

* Television: ESPN (Friday, 1-3 p.m.; Saturday-Sunday, 2:30-4 p.m.)