Monuments man helps turn dreams into reality on Colonial’s Wall of Champions

Every golfer competing in this week’s Dean & DeLuca Invitational will begin Thursday’s opening round at Colonial Country Club with the same goal:

He’d like to see his name etched into the club’s Wall of Champions when he returns in 2017 to defend his title.

What few, if any, players realize is that some help from Dennis Peters will be required to make that dream come true.

Peters, 68, is the person who has been inscribing the champions’ names on the iconic granite structure next to Colonial’s first tee since 1998 or 1999. Peters, who owns Fred Cheek Monuments, cannot remember when he took over that task from a co-worker at the company. But he knows it is one of his more cherished duties each year.

“I do not play golf,” Peters said. “But I enjoy doing the wall because it’s something to be proud of.”

Peters’ wife, Sammie, is the granddaughter of Fred Cheek, who founded the third-generation family business in Fort Worth. The couple took over the business in 1992 and, two years later, began adding names to the current wall.

The original Wall of Champions, erected in 1975, had space for only 50 names. The final spot was taken by Nick Price, the 1994 champion. Later that year, a new wall was built that could accommodate the first 50 names with room for 50 more. All those names would be etched into granite.

A representative from Fred Cheek Monuments has inscribed every name on the new wall, with most of the handiwork done by Peters. Heading into Thursday’s opening round, the wall includes 71 names: winners of the first 69 Colonial tournaments, plus champions of the 1941 U.S. Open (Craig Wood) and 1991 U.S. Women’s Open (Meg Mallon). Both of those events were held at Colonial.

Fans unfamiliar with the process might be surprised to learn there is no free-hand chiseling involved. Instead, Peters places a computer aided design (CAD) template on the wall that includes the champion’s name, the year and the winning score.

A rubber mask accompanies the template to protect the stone, but expose areas where inscriptions are desired. At that point, an air compressor and sandblasting pot are used to shoot an abrasive substance at the wall and create the desired image.

“There’s no etching tool. It’s all done by sandblasting,” Peters said. “A true craftsman could do it by hand. But I’m not that good.”

Plus, the hand-etching process would be far more time-consuming. As things stand, Colonial tournament director Michael Tothe said Peters typically is “in and out of there in about 30 minutes” on the day he immortalizes the latest Colonial winner. Last year’s bill to Colonial was $175, which Peters described as a standard fee for a words-only inscription.

After the winning putt drops each May, Peters said he begins preparing the information for his computer program. Then, he arranges a day to do the inscription through Scott Ebers, the Colonial golf course superintendent. Typically, the new name is added on a Monday when the club is closed.

“They ask me to get it up there as soon as possible,” Peters said. “Sometimes, I get it up there within two weeks. Sometimes, it’s about a month.”

Typically, the most recent winner does not witness Peters’ handiwork until he returns the following February for the Colonial kickoff luncheon. That is when Chris Kirk, this year’s defending champion, saw his name on the wall for the first time.

“That was an awesome feeling,” Kirk said. “To be able to be on that first tee every year and be able to look over and see my name literally set in stone is going to be really, really cool for a lot of years. Not many things in this game are set in stone. But that is.”

Tothe said it is not unusual for the latest champion to display some emotion when he spots his name on a wall adorned with inscriptions for Ben Hogan, Sam Snead, Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer, Ben Crenshaw, Lee Trevino, Tom Watson and other inductees at the World Golf Hall of Fame who have won events at Colonial. He cited a memory involving Boo Weekley, the 2013 Colonial champ.

“Boo took it in with a couple of deep breaths,” Tothe said. “Some guys can get a little choked up. It’s pretty special to them.”

Because of that emotion, Tothe said he would consider an alteration to standard inscribing protocol for the next Colonial champ who lives in Dallas-Fort Worth.

“If we have a local guy win, I think it would be cool to have him come over and see that,” Tothe said. “I think we’d absolutely do that, if we could.”

This story was originally published May 24, 2016 at 9:26 PM with the headline "Monuments man helps turn dreams into reality on Colonial’s Wall of Champions."