It's usually a slight tip of the hat or a half wave of the hand.

Signature moves
Arnold Palmer: Thumbs-up (Michael Holahan/Staff)

That's about the most you get when a professional golfer sinks a putt.

It's a pretty emotionless sport, but a handful of players give the crowd a little something extra, a signature move that shows their elation.

For Tiger Woods, it's a fist pump so expected, and so passionately delivered, that his emotion for the game is evident.

Jesper Parnevik, known for his signature look (colorful clothing and a cap with a flipped-up bill), also has his own move: firing up a cigar on the 18th hole after each victory.

Arnold Palmer would give a thumbs up, Ray Floyd would "shoot" a hole with his finger, and Jack Nicklaus would hold up his putter in victory.

The most expressive might be Chi Chi Rodriguez, who does a sword dance in which he pretends that his putter is a sword he's using to defend himself in a bullfight.

Signature moves
Jack Nicklaus: Raised putter (Associated Press)

"I used to do it for birdies and eagles. And then all of a sudden, I knew I was starting to get old when I was doing them for pars," Mr. Rodriguez, 71, said in a phone interview from his home in Puerto Rico. "And now I'm doing them for bogeys, and then you really know that your game is suffering when you're doing the sword for bogeys."

He's been doing it more than 30 years, but it's not his first move. He was first known for placing his hat over the hole after a birdie.

"The reason I did that was because I was playing a kid one time for 5 cents on this hole. We were playing about 6 in the morning and I made about a 20-foot putt and there was a toad in the hole, and the toad hopped out and there came the ball," Mr. Rodriguez explained. "So the kid says it doesn't count unless you hit the bottom of the hole, which is all right, that was the rule."

After that, he began putting his hat over the hole, he said, until criticism and grumbling started.

"Some pros - not the great ones but the has-beens that never were - they complained that I was damaging the hole, which wasn't true, but (then-executive director of the U.S. Golf Association) Joe Dey, who was a gentleman and a wonderful man, asked me if I could come up with something else," he said.

Mr. Rodriguez said he went back to his room and started thinking.

Signature moves
Tiger Woods: Fist pump (Annette M. Drowlette/Staff)

"And I, I became a bullfighter, so I thought the hole was a bull and I had the sword, which is the putter, and I stabbed the bull, and then I dried the blood off and I put the sword back in the scabbard," he said. "But in real life, I wouldn't hurt a fly."

The way he sees it, everybody copies somebody else; most players at that time looked up to Ben Hogan and even wanted to walk like him, Mr. Rodriguez said. But not him.

"I never wanted to be like anybody else; I just want to be me," he said.

Mr. Rodriguez has a theory on why fewer contemporary golfers do signature moves on the course.

"They're playing for so much money now that I don't blame them. They're concentrating on that so much," he said. "But, you know, that's why they make wallpaper: Everybody's different."

Mr. Rodriguez plays golf about once a week. He did the dance the last time he played in a tournament because he likes to "give the people a little move."

Signature moves
Chi Chi Rodriguez did his sword dance after sinking a 2001 birdie putt in West Des Moines, Iowa. (Associated Press)

Years of bullfighting on the green have been a blast.

"I dedicated myself to making people laugh," he said. "And laugh with me, never laugh at me."

Reach C. Samantha McKevie at (706) 823-3552 or samantha.mckevie@augustachronicle.com.