Juan “Chi Chi” Rodriguez, a Hall of Fame golfer whose antics on the greens and inspiring life story made him among the sport’s most popular players during a long professional career, died Thursday. He was 88.

Rodriguez’s death was announced by Carmelo Javier Ríos, a senator in Rodriguez’s native Puerto Rico. He didn’t provide a cause of death.

“Chi Chi Rodriguez’s passion for charity and outreach was surpassed only by his incredible talent with a golf club in his hand,” PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan said in a statement. “A vibrant, colorful personality both on and off the golf course, he will be missed dearly by the PGA Tour and those whose lives he touched in his mission to give back. The PGA Tour sends its deepest condolences to the entire Rodriguez family during this difficult time.”

He was born Juan Antonio Rodriguez, the second oldest of six children, in Rio Piedras, Puerto Rico, when it was blanketed with sugar cane fields and where he helped his father with the harvest as a child. The area is now a dense urban landscape, part of San Juan, the capital of the U.S. island territory.

Rodriguez said he learned to play golf by hitting tin cans with a guava tree stick and then found work as a caddie. He claimed he could shoot a 67 by age 12, according to a biography provided by the Chi Chi Rodriguez Management Group in Stow, Ohio.

No one from Puerto Rico had ever made it to the PGA Tour and Rodriguez was determined to not only get there but to beat the best. “They told me I was a hound dreaming about pork chops,” he once told Sports Illustrated.

He served in the U.S. Army from 1955-57 and joined the PGA Tour in 1960 and won eight times during his 21-year career, playing on one Ryder Cup team.

The first of his eight tour victories came in 1963, when he won the Denver Open. He followed it up with two the next year and continued through 1979 with the Tallahassee Open. He had 22 victories on the Champions Tour from 1985-2002, and had total combined career earnings of more than $7.6 million. He was inducted into the PGA World Golf Hall of Fame in 1992.

His playing record doesn’t look like Hall of Fame material. He contributions to the game with his showmanship and charity and devotion to youth development was gigantic.

He started an academy for children in the Tampa, Florida, area in the 1970s, focusing on those who were at risk. “Why do I love kids so much? Because I was never a kid myself. I was too poor to really have a childhood,” Rodriguez once said.

Rodriguez was perhaps best known for fairway antics that included twirling his club like a sword, sometimes referred to as his “matador routine,” or doing a celebratory dance, often with a shuffling salsa step, after making a birdie putt.

Golf

Hossler shoots 60 at Wyndham Championship >> Beau Hossler shot a 10-under 60 on Friday in the rain-delayed Wyndham Championship in Greensboro, N.C., squandering a chance for a sub-60 round with pars on the last three holes at soft and vulnerable Sedgefield Country Club.

Hossler had a two-stroke lead over Billy Horschel in the tournament that started a day late after heavy rain and wind from Tropical Storm Debby washed out play Thursday. Play also was delayed Friday, with Horschel among the 66 afternoon starters unable to finish the round because of darkness. He had two holes left.

With players allowed to lift, clean and place their golf balls in the fairways because of the wet conditions, Hossler was 6 under after a tap-in eagle on the par-5 fifth and added a birdie on the par-4 eighth in a front-nine 28. He opened the back nine birdie-bogey-birdie and made the last of his nine birdies on Nos. 14 and 15.

“I drove it well and particularly probably the highlight of the round was just mid-irons,” Hossler said after the lowest round of his tour career. “A few 6-irons I hit really close, 5-iron I almost made a hole-in-one. It was one of those days where it felt like kind of everything went right.”

Winless on the PGA Tour, the 29-year-old former University of Texas star missed birdie putts from 30 feet on the par-3 16th and 17 feet on the par-4 17th. On the par-4 18th, he drove into the left rough, hit into a left greenside bunker and blasted out to 7 feet to set up a par-saving putt. He was a stroke off the course record of 59 set by Brandt Snedeker in the first round of his 2018 victory.

College football

Harbaugh named Wolverines’ honorary captain >> Former Michigan head coach Jim Harbaugh, who on Wednesday was slapped with a four-year show cause and a one-year suspension from the NCAA, will be back in Michigan Stadium for the season opener as an honorary captain.

Michigan athletic director Warde Manuel revealed on the “1 Star Recruits” podcast that posted Wednesday that Harbaugh, now the Los Angeles Chargers head coach, will return as honorary captain when Michigan hosts Fresno State on Aug. 31.

“I look forward to having him back here in Ann Arbor for that game,” Manuel said on the podcast.

The NCAA released a 48-page document detailing its investigation into the Michigan football program for impermissible recruiting during the COVID-19 dead period in 2021 and concluded Harbaugh demonstrated “unethical conduct” and misled investigators. Harbaugh served a three-game, school-imposed suspension at the start of last season relating to this investigation.

NFL

Wright traded to Vikings >> The Minnesota Vikings traded Andrew Booth Jr. to the Dallas Cowboys for Nahshon Wright (James Logan High) in a low-level swap of cornerbacks who might be at risk of getting cut by the end of training camp.

Booth was a second-round pick by the Vikings out of Clemson in 2022 but had minimal impact over two seasons. He was limited to six games as a rookie by injuries but played all 17 games last season with a mix of snaps on defense and special teams. Booth didn’t record an interception for Minnesota.

Wright is the fifth defensive back the Vikings have added since the start of training camp as they try to address gaps in depth and experience. Eight-year veteran Fabian Moreau joined Minnesota last week.

PRESCOTT HELD OUT OF WORKOUT >> Dak Prescott was held out of a light workout as a precaution with the Dallas Cowboys quarterback experiencing mild soreness in his surgically repaired right ankle.

The decision came a day after Dallas held its only joint workout of training camp in a visit from the Rams. The Cowboys and Rams open the preseason against each other Sunday in L.A.

Prescott is going into the final season of his $160 million, four-year contract but hasn’t missed any time in camp.