New museum to honor Doug Sanders
Morris family adding second museum around the corner featuring collection of Cedartown native and famed golfer
Construction continues off of Main Street, transforming old office space into a new addition to Cedartown’s pair of museums in the downtown area.
The Morris family is bringing their resources and success with the Cedartown Museum of Coca-Cola Memorabilia around the corner and plan to open a new space
dedicated to the collection of Polk County native golfer Doug Sanders, who is one of several honored already in the Sports Walk of Fame in front of the court house.
Jamie Morris, co-owner of Cedarstream, said the family is working to create a space to showcase a large collection of golf memorabilia that Sanders collected over decades of playing on the professional stage.
“We are expecting it to be a nice addition to the City of Cedartown, and one that honors a man with a great legacy in our community,” he said. “Most of the people here know him, and people have been asking me ‘when, when, when.’... I’m glad to see it finally get off the ground.”
There’s a lot to include in the future museum. Sanders, who has played 18-holes with Presidents, astronauts and celebrities from all walks of life, amassed a collection of memorabilia and photographs in his house in Texas over decades as a professional golfer.
Much of that collection was turned over to the Morris family to help it be preserved and shared with his hometown in Cedartown after Sanders came to take part in the Ayers-Beck Celebrity Golf Tournament several years ago. The Morris family flew out in years past to discuss taking over the items and establishing a museum and bringing the idea to life.
“We’ll have a revolving selection of his collection,” Morris said.
Work on the new museum began several weeks ago and is continuing at a fast pace. Morris said the work is expected to be completed in early 2020 on the major phase of rehabilitating the old law offices they purchased in years past, and then finish the conversion by late summer 2020.
“We expect we’ll be open this time next year,” Morris said. If everything goes smoothly.
Morris said plans for the future include bringing Sanders’ statue on the Sports Walk of Fame to the front of the building and tie in the back portion of the museum to the back of the Coca-Cola museum downtown in one large complex in a next phase of construction in future years with the rest of the Walk of Fame statues with a park.
“The idea is to be able to go back and forth between the museums,” Morris said.
Cedarstream, which moved out of downtown Cedartown with the completion of their new facilities in the Northside Industrial Park, now gives the Morris family additional space to also increase the collection on display at the Coca-Cola museum as well.
He said it is their hope to expand into space previously used in the former bottling plant building making up most of the 200-block on the east side of Main Street to allow for display of vehicles and other items they’ve had in their private Coca-Cola collection for several years but didn’t have the room to include in the museum over the past few years since it opened.
Additionally, Morris said the hopes are as the museum grow to also begin a golf tournament to benefit junior golfers.
“One of Doug’s (Sanders) main areas is providing support to young golfers,” Morris said. “He grew up poor, didn’t have much. He has a heart for giving back... For me what would be ideal is to help middle school age children learn the game of golf and help them with equipment.”
The hope being that by lowering the expensive barrier to playing golf for youth, participation in the sport will grow.
Sanders, who lives in Houston, Texas these days, no longer gets out on the course now that he’s 86 years old. The PGA professional retired after he won 24 events and four runner-up finishes in major championships across a his career. He was also a member of the 1967 U.S. Ryder Cup team that was played that year in Houston.
“We’re hoping once it opens that he can come out here and see it,” Morris said.
The logo for the new museum honors his title of “Peacock of the Fairways” for his flamboyant dress and joking character.