What a week! Brothers Jonathan and Shimmy Savitsky of Woodmere both hit holes-in-one

It’s been coming up aces for the Savitsky family of Woodmere this year.

On Sept. 23 Jonathan Savitsky sent a driver toward the green of the short 310-yard par 4 third hole at the North Woodmere Golf Course. Lo and behold, it was in the cup for the very rare albatross, a 1 on a par 4 hole.

On Sept. 26 his older brother Shimmy was playing the Lawrence Yacht & Country Club where the family has a membership. On the par 3 fourth hole of 154 yards, Shimmy hit a crisp 9-iron that found the bottom of the cup for an ace.

This comes two years after their father Avi made an ace on the 140-yard ninth hole at North Woodmere using a 7-hybrid. And in the cell-phone age, the family had kept touch with each other about their feats beginning with dad’s ace.

Jonathan and Shimmy are both low handicap players in the 1 or 2 range. They long ago passed their father as strong players. So when dad made the first of the aces, it came as a bit of a surprise.

“We started playing golf together when the kids were little at North Woodmere. As they grew up we sort of learned it together,” Avi Savitsky said. “Over the last four or five years, their distance and everything got past me. I kind of remarked to them, you guys have the distance but God forbid I get a hole in one before you. You’ll never live it down.”

And then it happened, and the FaceTiming began.

“I took my camera out to video my walkup to the ball,” Avi said. “I immediately FaceTimed them. When Jonathan answered he said, ‘Oh no.’

“I answered oh, yes.”

Fast forward to Jonathan’s albatross. 

“When Jonathan hit his shot on September 23rd and he had quite ways to walk until he found it, he FaceTimed myself and also Shimmy,” Avi said. “So we were kind of walking with him and having these FaceTime realities and I’m like, I can’t believe this happened.”

Three days later Shimmy had already planned on FaceTiming his shots on the par 3s.

“The night before Jonathan and I were joking around about how I was going to video chat him for the par 3s,” Shimmy said. “I got up to the first par 3 and I called him and sat the phone down behind the ball resting on a head cover so he could see the shot.

“I looked back at him after I hit it and I doubt he could see the full flight of it but I said it might have gone in. He was on the phone the whole time I rode up to the hole and ran up to the hole to check [if] the ball was in the hole. It was pretty fun. Now we can all celebrate.”

So what’s next?

Said Avi, "The race for No. 2 begins."