CONCORD, Mass. (AP) - Chi Chi Rodriguez has his principles. One of them is that golf should be fun and the another is that it should be fair.
The 70-year-old Hall of Famer sat out the Champions Tour season last year rather than accept a series of sponsor's exemptions he considered consolation prizes. This year he's back, ready to rescue the circuit by entertaining fans who showed up at the Bank of America Championship despite rain that postponed Friday's round and threatened to scuttle the entire event.
"I missed it," Rodriguez said after a comical clinic on the driving range for a few hundred people. "I wasn't angry. I was disappointed that they took my exemption away with a backdoor rule.
"But we all make mistakes. I'm happy now, and I'm back here, and I'll do anything I can to make the tour successful."
Rodriguez is still one of the most popular golfers of any age and a 22-time champion on the over-50 tour. But he lost his exempt status last year as his scores soared and wasn't willing to play under one-time invitations.
"It was a matter of principle," Rodriguez said. "I earned the right not to have to be invited."
In response, the tour changed its all-time victory category to bring Rodriguez - as a Hall of Famer with 30 combined wins on the PGA and Champions tours - back into the fold.
"The Champions Tour is still for entertainment," spokesman Phil Stambaugh said. "And fans still want to see Chi Chi out here."
The decision to postpone Friday's first round was made about 8 a.m. after tour officials decided that weeks of heavy rain made the course unplayable. Play will instead start at 12:30 p.m. ET on Saturday, with the goal of finishing at least 18 holes and possibly 36 more on Sunday, Champions Tour tournament director Ben Nelson told reporters.
"The fairways are just too waterlogged," he said. "You can't take relief from casual water because there's no where to go."
Paul Miller, the Nashawtuc Country Club's director of golf operations, said Concord gets an average of 122 centimetres of rain a year, but the area has received more than 50 centimetres since the beginning of May.
"We have reached a saturation point three times in the last month," he said.
A regular Champions Tour event is scheduled for 54 holes; 36 holes must be completed for it to count as official.
The problem in Nashawtuc on Friday was not rain - the sun even peeked through the clouds, briefly - but the water left behind. Five holes were partially flooded, including No. 1, which had much of the fairway overtaken by the Sudbury River, and No. 9, which will be shortened from a 543-yard par-5 to a 130-yard par-3.
If it becomes obvious on Sunday that 36 holes can't be completed, the tour would consider playing fewer. Statistics and prize money would not be considered official.
"We'll make sure we have some show for them," Nelson said.
Fans got a show on Friday, even it wasn't the one they expected to see.
While his fellow golfers methodically went through their practice on the range around him, Rodriguez cracked jokes through a loudspeaker and performed trick shots like he's done thousands of times before.
It was the regular Rodriguez fare: shots hit with the tip of his club, calling hooks and slices; hitting off a tee poked through six stacked paper cups; hitting from a chair; hitting from one knee; hitting lefty; hitting righty with a lefty club; imitating other pros; and using a seven-iron for every shot from a 10-foot putt to a 200-yard drive.
He gave not-entirely useful tips on how to hit the ball straight (hit it out of a paper cup), and how to add five yards to a drive (after hitting the ball, take five paces backwards). And then he signed autographs for every person in the crowd who wanted one (kids first).
"He's the master," said fellow pro Pat McGowan, who stopped hitting from the range to watch the show even though he had seen it dozens of times before.
"Chi Chi makes the game fun. A lot of people can teach you how to make shots. But he makes it fun. He plays the game for the right reasons. And he's put a golf club in more kids' hands than anybody."
Divots: D.A. Weibring became the second player to withdraw, joining Curtis Strange. Weibring was replaced in the field by Joe Inman. .. Other holes under water include Nos. 8, 10 and 14. .. The 2005 Bayer Advantage Classic in Kansas City was the tour's last event that was shortened to 36 holes. .. The 1992 Concord tournament was a rain-shortened, 36-hole event won by Mike Hill.