Chi Chi Is Still a Star Attraction

It’s been three years since the curtain fell on the Chi Chi Rodriguez show, starring Juan Rodriguez as the club-waving swordsman who says funny things, wins golf tournaments and then jets off to Bavaria to receive lamb cell injections so he can stay younger longer.

Rodriguez hasn’t won in three years, so Saturday when he threw a five-under-par 66 at Wilshire Country Club and took a one-shot lead over Jim Colbert heading into today’s final round of the Ralphs Senior Classic, it was a cause for celebration for the star of the show.

“If I win, in memory of Tony Lema, I will bring the champagne,” Rodriguez said. “If I lose, then we’ll have coffee.”

Coffee?

“I love Juan Valdez.”

It’s clear the fans still love Rodriguez, the 61-year-old who was born in Puerto Rico. He has won 22 times on the Senior PGA Tour, but not since 1993.

The large gallery at the 18th green moaned when he missed a five-foot putt for birdie. Rodriguez merely shrugged.

“There are 1.2 billion Chinese that only wish they could have missed that putt,” he said.

Maybe he was thinking about the 45-footer he drained at No. 8 or the 20-footer that rolled into the hole at No. 14. Come to think of it, Rodriguez wasn’t exactly sure of the distances of those putts.

The first one was about “from here to the black car,” he said as he sat in a chair in the clubhouse. He figured the second one was from about as far away as the lamp to which he pointed.

“They all look long to me at my age,” he said.

To be sure, there’s a long way to go for Rodriguez. He is most closely pursued by Colbert, who already has won four times this year. Two shots back at seven-under 135 are two-time winner Graham Marsh and Dave Stockton, who also has won twice and has 13 top-10 finishes.

Rodriguez has traveled a different road. He has only one top-10 finish since April, but he said he doesn’t feel down about it.

“Your worst day in life is sometimes better than somebody else’s best day,” he said.

In any event, Rodriguez said he feels better now than when he was 25, thanks in a large part to the lamb cell injections he started taking a couple of years ago. Even if it hasn’t helped his golf all that much.

“Now I can run 18 holes, I just can’t play 18 holes,” he said.

Colbert was all over the place, but he finished with a 68, and his eight-under par total of 134 is only one shot behind Rodriguez.

Raymond Floyd, Gil Morgan, Dale Douglass and John Schroeder are three shots off the lead at six-under par 137.

Stockton’s 65 was the best round of the day and it featured six birdies, no bogeys and a new, old friend--his 56-degree wedge.

Stockton stuck the club back in his bag and it came in handy, especially on the par-four 17th when he stopped the ball two feet from the hole. He tapped it in for birdie, then started thinking about really important things.

Such as building duck blinds.

If Stockton enjoys hunting ducks, Colbert likes shooting birdies. “Golf is either my hobby or my business, you decide,” Colbert said. “It’s all I do.”

For Rodriguez, golf is something else. It’s show business.

“You are on stage, you are supposed to give the people a show,” he said. “But how can you give them a show when you are shooting 75? It’s like a monkey dancing without a banana.”

If he doesn’t slip up, maybe it’ll be Rodriguez’s show one more time.