NEW LONDON – Asked to share a few words about the late Seaver Peters – whose place on the Mount Rushmore of the Tommy Keane Invitational golf tournament is recognized this weekend with “Seaver” stitched on the back of player hats – his grandson Tom Peters aced the challenge.
It’s a way Seaver Peters would have appreciated.
A former Dartmouth ice hockey standout who was instrumental in getting the tournament off the ground during his tenure as the Big Green athletic director from 1967-83, he died earlier this year at age 87. An on-campus commemoration was set for March 28 but fell victim to the COVID-19 pandemic.
The Tommy Keane tournament really is a fitting tribute to the silver-haired Peters, who played in the early days of the venerable event he helped start in 1975.
“This was Seaver’s baby,” said Jeff Frechette, a longtime Keane player who worked as a trainer under Peters in the Dartmouth athletic department and knew him well. “It is such an important event to so many golfers, and although we couldn’t play in Hanover it is still going strong. That’s a testament to what it has been, what it is and what it will be. And to Seaver Peters. He was a driving force for a lot of great things, including the Tommy Keane.”
Jim Jankowski credits Peters, like himself a former Big Green hockey player, with introducing him to the tournament as a Dartmouth undergrad.
“I ran into him and he asked if I wanted to play,” said Jankowski, who won the event for the first time last year with son Andrew. Both are former Big Green golfers. “Seaver said to get my stuff in and I’d be all set. He really wanted Dartmouth golfers to be involved.”
Jankowski would go on to join the Keane committee a decade or so ago.
“When I came on Seaver was still completely involved,” he said. “He paid attention to every detail. As the years went by he was doing a little less but he was always there.”
In addition to having his name on the back of golf hats this year, the man so integral to the TKI was the inspiration for the establishment of the Seaver Peters Award which recognizes the player or team that “embodies the spirit of Seaver Peters, his love of golf and good fellowship, his competitive drive and sportsmanship, the warmth of his smile and the special devotion he had for this unique event.”
Not surprisingly, the inaugural winner was Peters’ son Scott, widely credited for helping keep alive the tournament that meant so much to his father, and now to his own sons.
“I just have such great pride in who he was and what he did,” Scott Peters said. “With Seaver passing and Hanover Country Club closing this is a new page, but it signals a bright future for the event, and I think that would make my father proud.”
DIVOTS
The storybook finish for the Tommy Keane will have to wait another year as the team of Pat Pelletier and Adam Pippin outlasted Ben and Tom Peters in 20 holes in the afternoon match moments before Ted Lyon and Brendan Monahan defeated Scott Peters and Andy Hydorn on the 18th hole.
Pelletier and Pippin, who made it to the championship match a year ago, will play Craig Steckowych and Brett Wilson, who knocked off defending champions Jim and Andrew Jankowski in the afternoon. The other semi will pit Jim Cilley and Bobby Williams against Lyon and Monahan.
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