Fred Silver
Golfer
While golf as a healthful leisure activity can be enjoyed for a lifetime, few golfers remain competitive at the highest levels of the sport for more than a decade or two. The Buffalo area boasts such a marvel in Fred Silver, who has demonstrated rare and remarkable longevity by staying at the top of his game for over 35 years.
Fred was a top hockey prospect at hotbed Clarkson University and was selected First Team All East in the Eastern Collegiate Athletic Conference in 1968. However, Silver also achieved early success in golf (Northern Ontario Junior Championship in 1959 and 1961), which led him to eventually choose grass over ice. Fred graduated to Northern Ontario Amateur champion in 1966. His 1972 Niagara Falls Country Club title landed him a berth in the Porter Cup, for which he qualified 33 consecutive years (and won in the Senior Division in 1996). Fred continued to dominate the NFCC men’s club championship over the years, winning an amazing 23 times (and counting!). Silver also copped the Buffalo District Amateur Championship in 1972, the first of a record six wins in that event, Buffalo’s most prestigious for amateurs. With his latest such win in 2002, he also holds a record with a 30 year span from first win to last.
Silver’s talents have provided him with opportunities to shine on statewide and national levels. Fred has qualified for and played in 18 New York State Amateur Championships, finishing in the top five four times. He has also qualified for and played in 13 State Mid-Amateur Championships and was runner-up in that event in 1995. Perhaps the best indicators of his sustained excellence are his runner-up status in the 2001 State Senior Tournament, his 2002 National Senior-Junior Championship, and his eight top-10 finishes and four top-5 finishes in the National Senior Amateur Tournaments. These feats brought him a #13 ranking nationally in 2002 for Senior Amateurs by Golf Week magazine. In addition to the national acclaim he has received, Silver was first in Western New York golf rankings from 1983-1996. Active in all phases of the game, Fred has also been President of the Buffalo District Golf Association and tournament director of the Porter Cup.
As his more recent achievements attest, Fred Silver has only gotten better with age. He continues to play the game he loves at the highest level, and tonight, area golfers and sports fans share the thrill of Fred’s induction into the Greater Buffalo Sports Hall of Fame.
