With 3 more this summer, Youngstown’s Silvestri racks up 8 aces

August 10, 2014 at 12:06a.m.

YOUNGSTOWN

They say that your second hole-in-one comes faster than your initial ace.

Bill Silvestri can’t disagree. The holes-in-one just keep coming to him and he more than qualifies as the area’s “hole-in-one” machine.

Silvestri, 64, started golfing at 12. Nearly 52 years later, he proudly boasts of eight aces.

Not bad for someone who was 49 when he scored his first ace.

Silvestri registered four more over the next 14 years.

This summer, he has cranked out three more.

“I grew up at the Henry Stambaugh Golf Course and watched the likes of George Bellino, Rick Jones, Sr., Leo Jennings, Rich Santagata and Jimmy Taylor,” Silvestri said. “All were excellent golfers and I aspired to one day be like them when on the course.”

Silvestri said there are so many players “that are better than me who have yet to record a hole-in-one” so he remains humbled “by what I have been able to accomplish over the years.”

Self-taught, Silvestri was born on the city’s East Side, later moved to Liberty and is a 1968 graduate of Ursuline High School.

While a member of the Fighting Irish links team, he earned two letters under Father Michael Chonko’s direction and helped his alma mater to the City Series title his senior season.

He cut his golfing teeth playing against some of the very best competition in the local Y-League (mid-1970s to 2001), also holding his own as a member of the late Bill Santor’s team in the Penn-Ohio League (early 1980s to mid-1990s).

“I had so many great players as teammates,” Silvestri said. “Guys like [his brother] Bob, Frank Bellino, John and Frank Marsco, Dick Marlowe, Gregg Strollo, Rick [Jones Sr.] and Andrew Santor,” he said, referring to the Mill Creek Golf Course pro.

“Every round we played was always very competitive.”

Silvestri’s aces all have been recorded on par-3 holes, with his first coming in 1999 at his home course — Henry Stambaugh on Youngstown’s North Side. That one came on the number six hole.

His second ace came a few years later at Cortland’s Tamer Win Golf Course and Country Club on the number five hole.

“I retired seven years ago after 34 years with the Youngstown Water Department so I’m able to play about five or six times a week,” Silvestri said. “I still love all sports, but golf has been a great release and just so much fun to play; especially with friends.

“I’ve made so many great friends and met so many people; people I wouldn’t ordinarily have met had it not been for golf.”

Two of this summer’s aces came within a four-day period in June. First, he aced Stambaugh’s number six hole, then aced the number nine hole at Punderson State Park Golf Course in Newbury.

The other was recorded last week at Salem Hills Golf Course.

Joe Nigro, a former Youngstown State basketball standout, has witnessed three of Silvestri’s last four holes-in-one.

“I usually play with Bill four days a week and trust me, he’s an excellent golfer,” Nigro said. “He’s an excellent driver and really good around the greens.”