“I expect myself to do a lot of great things, but I mean it’s just like such a difficult game,” said Butters on where he sits at this point in his career. “I kind of just take everything one step at a time and try to limit expectations and just go have a blast and play my hardest.”
Scott Uyeshiro, who has coached high school golf since 2016, witnessed a prime example of what Butters was capable of late in his first season at the helm of Perry boys golf.
At last year’s CUSD Invitational (Oct. 24-25) at Maricopa’s The Duke – Perry’s final tuneup before the state championship – Butters held off Hamilton junior Joseph Nelson by one stroke at 7 under par. A couple of pars on 17 and 18 secured the individual victory and a final round of 4-under-par 68.
“That was one tournament that impressed me because when you’re in that situation where you’re behind and then you get ahead, do you make mistakes?” Uyeshiro said. “But that was one I was like he was on his game, fairways and greens and down on his putting.”
The Pumas as a team were also neck-and-neck with Casteel in the district tournament. Casteel narrowly won the title by one but, in the case of a tie, each team would have chosen one player to enter a deciding sudden-death playoff.