The first Puerto Rican to break into professional golf was Juan “Chi Chi” Rodriguez.
Born in Puerto Rico in 1937, he worked as a caddy at age six.
Too poor to afford to buy equipment, he made his own golf club from a guava tree branch and practiced his swing on tin cans.
By the 1960s, his talent had taken him to the top ten of the professional golf circuit.
Another pioneer among Latino golfers was Lee Trevino, a Mexican American born in Dallas in 1939. He also started playing professionally in the 1960s.
