HONORING JEWS IN SPORTS

CLASS OF 2025 UNVEILED

(The Golden Mean) — When Ben Silverman played in his first golf tournament at the age of 16, he shot an astronomical score of 118. But it didn’t matter. Even though he excelled at three other sports, he says the die was already cast:

“What’s crazy is that I had actually decided I wanted to be a professional golfer before I entered that tournament. I was just dead set on that, and that my story would not become full circle until I went on the PGA Tour.”

Ben’s topsy-turvy pursuit of that goal over the next 20 years would eventually become an inspiration for young players everywhere. Now 37, the native Canadian is playing his third full season on the PGA Tour. And while he hasn’t yet won his first Tour event, it matters little to his fans.

“When I meet kids at tournaments and sign autographs have a little conversation, what blows my mind is how they look at me with this awestruck look of wonder when I tell them that I didn’t even start golfing until I was 13. And they’re 10 years old and playing tournaments. So I tell every single one of them, you’re way ahead of me already at this age. And I’m on the PGA Tour.”

It didn’t come easy. Far from it. Ben told me about it and much more when I interviewed him over the phone from Thornhill, Ontario, where he grew up and was visiting family. His parents, both professional musicians, always encouraged their three kids to ‘chase their dreams.’ Ben absorbed every bit of it:

“At any high level craft, there’s a form of mental practice that has to be involved, self-determination, work ethic. And I got all that from both of them. My dad was more in the sports world. He was also a big time hockey player and he knew the sports side of things. My mom was juggling raising four kids and being a professional musician. And then when that went away, she went back to school to become a midwife and do four years of schooling and start this whole another career.”

That hard-core work ethic helped Ben to walk-on to two college teams. In his early 20s, he hit the road and was playing in tournaments wherever he could. But he was struggling and needed a break. It came in the form of the Maccabi Games.

“Growing up, didn’t know about the history of The Games. That there were something like 7,000 athletes who gather from around the world, who have some sort of Jewish heritage and that it was so big. And I don’t think I found out anything about it until Team Canada reached out to me.”

It was a good decision. In 2013 at the Caesarea Golf Club in Israel, Ben Silverman won the Gold Medal in the Maccabi Men’s Open by a whopping 11 shots.

Ben Silverman (middle above the “1″) sporting his Gold for Canada at the 2013 Maccabi Games in Israel. (credit: Silverman IG)

The other stroke of luck that came from being in The Games was that he was asked to play as a substitute in the traditional match between Great Britain and the USA. During that round, Ben met a 60-year-old who was super-impressed by his play.

“He basically took me under his wing, got a couple other guys involved, and they fully funded me so that I could train full-time and take lessons with a better coach. They covered all my food, living, and travel expenses. And that’s when things started to take off for me. All of them had been part of the Team USA Maccabi organization for years.”

Ben’s dad Howard is Jewish, and though the family did not have a religious upbringing, Ben knows he’s one of a handful of Jewish players on Tour right now that plenty of Jewish golf fans are following. He’s glad about that. But he also says that once the ball is on the tee, only one thing matters.

“What I’ve come to realize is that when it comes down to it, it’s who can be the best and who can win. And your own country or your own home supporters are always going to be, ‘he’s the best Korean golfer’ or something like that. But what we care about is whether we’re the best golfer. And so that’s the focus that I have.”

In 2017, five years after Maccabi, Ben qualified to play on the PGA Tour. That kid from Ontario who’d shot 118 had finally achieved his dream! At least, the first one…

Two years later, Ben lost his PGA Tour status and went back to playing on the Korn Ferry Tour. It’s a fate no pro golfer suffers easily. But he remembered the example of his parents, and slammed the pedal down even harder. It paid off.

In 2023 Ben Silverman won the Great Abaco Classic on the Korn Ferry Tour, which re-qualified him to play with the big boys in 2024. It turned out to be his most successful year yet, as he came closer than ever to winning a PGA Tour event and earned $1.2 million for his finishes.

Now, after getting to have an actual off-season, he’s back at it. Ben hasn’t played great in his first few 2025 events, but he can feel it coming right around the corner.

“I started hitting some great shots at the Farmers Insurance Open. And, you know, just made a couple of mistakes and in tough conditions — and missed the cut by one. But it’s not far off. And I’m excited to get back to Phoenix to really get going.”

He’s also taken a page out of the legendary Earl Woods training method:

“On Monday, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays, I give my caddy free reign to do whatever he wants. So he’ll throw down, he’ll bang my golf bag in the middle of my swing. He’ll slam a cooler. He’ll throw golf balls in front of me when I’m about to hit a shot. And it’s part of getting me, we call it having a clear intention. If I’m clear on the shot I’m trying to hit, nothing else matters.”

Ben and his caddy Brian Kopsick celebrate their win at the Great Abaco Classic in the Bahamas, 2023. (Silverman IG)

A lot of young players are eagerly awaiting Ben Silverman’s arrival this week at the Phoenix Waste Management Open. Ben’s early dream of making the Tour has morphed into one of winning on the Tour. But the hidden lesson he’s learned is that inspiring all these kids is just as important as any title. I asked Ben what’s the one piece of advice he’d give to every young competitive golfer.

“Everything comes down to how deep your reasoning is for what you want to do. How deep is your why? My ‘why’ of why I kept pursuing this and got as good as I did was because there was nothing else I wanted to do, and I understood that we get one life to live. Any obstacle that came up didn’t matter. It didn’t matter that I wasn’t good yet. Didn’t matter that I didn’t have a country club to play at yet. I’ll figure it out because this is the only thing I want to do.”

Golf’s underdog of the 21st century is right on the cusp of catching his next dream. And a lot of fans, including this one, are having a hell of a time watching him chase it.

MICHAEL GOLDEN is a national award-winning journalist and cofounder of the One Million Degrees Community College Project. He is also the editor-in-chief of JEWDICIOUS.

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