Jakob Butturff

Jakob Butturff (born April 28, 1994) is a left-handed American ten-pin bowler from Chandler, Arizona and a member of the Professional Bowlers Association. He competes in events on the PBA Tour and in global events as a member of Team USA. He has won seven national PBA Tour titles (including one major) and 22 PBA Regional Tour titles.[1]

Jakob Butturff
Born (1994-04-28) April 28, 1994
Bowling Information
AffiliationPBA
Dominant handLeft
Wins7 (1 major)
300-games16
SponsorsColumbia 300, Vise Grips
Medal record
Men's bowling
Representing  United States
World Bowling Championships
2017 Las Vegas Team
World Bowling Championships
2018 Hong Kong Team
Pan American Games
2019 Lima Doubles
2019 Lima Singles

Amateur career

Butturff finished first at the 2017 Team USA Trials, and has been a Team USA member from 2017 through 2019. He won a team gold medal at the 2017 World Bowling Championships.[1]

Butturff and his Team USA teammates won the 2019 Weber Cup over Team Europe.[2] At the 2019 Pan American Games in Peru, Butturff and Team USA teammate Nick Pate earned a silver medal in doubles. During qualifying for this event, Jakob broke the Pan American Games record for a six-game block with a score of 1,516. In the next six-game block, he broke his own record with a 1,538 score. He also earned a bronze medal in the singles event.[3]

Professional bowling career

Butturff became a PBA member in 2015, bowling primarily on the PBA Regional circuit that season. He won his first PBA Tour title in the 2016 PBA Xtra Frame Lubbock Sports Open. In October that same year, he won the PBA South Point Las Vegas Open for his second title.

While he had no PBA Tour victories in the 2017 season, Butturff did win the title at the Quibica AMF World Cup on November 11 in Hermosillo, Mexico.[4] Butturff had a chance to win his first major championship at the 2017 U.S. Open. He qualified as the #1 seed, leading his next-closest competitor by an astounding 617 pins, but he lost the televised championship match to Rhino Page, 256–222.[1][5]

Butturff won the Go Bowling! PBA 60th Anniversary classic in February 2018 for his third PBA Tour title, and first on national television. He then won the PBA Xtra Frame Kenn-Feld Group Classic in August for his fourth title. In October 2018, Butturff qualified as the #1 seed at the U.S. Open for a second straight season, but again lost the final match, this time by a single pin to England's Dominic Barrett on October 31. Butturff joined PBA Hall of Famer Earl Anthony as the only two bowlers to be the top qualifier in back-to-back U.S. Opens during the modern era (since 1971). Coincidentally, Anthony also lost the final match in both years (1979 and 1980).[6]

Butturff qualified as the #1 seed for the first two tournaments of the 2019 PBA Tour season, joining Johnny Petraglia, Earl Anthony and Walter Ray Williams Jr. as the only players to be the top qualifier in three consecutive PBA Tour events (going back to the final event of the 2018 season). Butturff lost the title match in the season-opening PBA Hall of Fame classic, but won the PBA Oklahoma Open the following week for his fifth PBA Tour title.[7] He captured his sixth PBA Tour title and first major at the 2019 USBC Masters, qualifying as the #1 seed for the stepladder finals and defeating Mykel Holliman in the championship match for the win.[8] Butturff won his seventh PBA title and third of the 2019 season on June 30 at the Lubbock Sports Shootout.[9] He has also had runner-up finishes in 2019 at the PBA World Championship, DHC PBA Japan Invitational, and Barbasol PBA Tour Finals. On October 21, Jakob won the $50,000 winner-take-all top prize in the PBA Clash. This was a non-title made-for-TV event featuring the 2019 season's top eight money leaders, and was broadcast November 3 on Fox.[10] Butturff finished second to Jason Belmonte in the 2019 PBA Player of the Year voting.[11]

In addition to his national PBA Tour titles, Butturff has won 22 PBA Regional Tour titles, including a PBA-record nine Regional titles in the 2016 season alone.[1] His 20th title came in just his 59th PBA Regional tournament on January 20, 2019. Of the 38 players to date with at least 20 Regional titles, Butturff is recognized as the youngest (age 24) to reach the plateau.[12]

PBA Tour wins

Majors are highlighted in bold.

  1. 2016: Xtra Frame Lubbock Sports Open (Lubbock, TX)
  2. 2016: South Point Las Vegas Open (Las Vegas, NV)
  3. 2018: Go Bowling! PBA 60th Anniversary Classic (Indianapolis, IN)
  4. 2018: Xtra Frame Ken-Feld Group Classic (Coldwater, OH)
  5. 2019: PBA Oklahoma Open (Shawnee, OK)
  6. 2019: USBC Masters (Las Vegas, NV)
  7. 2019: Lubbock Sports Shootout (Lubbock, TX)

Bowling style

Butturff has a unique delivery, in part due to being double-jointed with “hypermobility” in his wrist. According to bowling coach and author Bill Spigner, Butturff's starting wrist position is “almost an impossible position for someone with normal flexibility to achieve.”[13] This allows Jakob to impart high revolutions on his shot, achieving an RPM rate comparable to many two-handed bowlers. For this reason, Butturff frequently uses an older technology urethane bowling ball instead of reactive equipment.

Career statistics

Statistics are through the last complete PBA Tour season.

SeasonEventsCashesMatch PlayCRA+PBA Tour TitlesRegional TitlesAverageEarnings ($)
2015965402222.4618,400
20162612111129218.4259,500
2017331917704224.4166,000
20183419171125223.5992,510
2019312118932219.63195,080

+CRA = Championship Round Appearances

References
  1. "Jakob Butturff PBA Player Bio". PBA.com. Retrieved October 12, 2018.
  2. Vint, Bill (June 21, 2019). "PBA Spare Shots: American PBA Stars Successfully Defend Weber Cup, Tie Series at 10-10". PBA.com. Retrieved June 24, 2019.
  3. Vint, Bill (August 2, 2019). "PBA Spare Shots: Butturff Continues Torrid Year; Pate, Puerto Rican PBA Partners Win Gold in Pan Am Games". PBA.com. Retrieved August 7, 2019.
  4. Spigner, Bill (November 11, 2017). "53rd QuibicaAMF Bowling World Cup – Full Results and Standings". bowlingdigital.com. Retrieved October 12, 2018.
  5. Schneider, Jerry (November 1, 2017). "Rhino Page Wins 2017 U.S. Open for First Major Title". Retrieved November 3, 2017.
  6. Schneider, Jerry (October 31, 2018). "Barrett Wins U.S. Open with Thrilling One-Pin Victory Over Butturff in Title Match". Retrieved November 2, 2018.
  7. Schneider, Jerry (January 13, 2019). "Jakob Butturff Ends Top Qualifier Slump to Win PBA Oklahoma Open for Fifth Career Tour Title". Retrieved January 14, 2019.
  8. Vint, Bill (April 1, 2019). "Jakob Butturff Wins USBC Masters for First Major Title". pba.com. Retrieved April 2, 2019.
  9. Wiseman, Lucas (June 30, 2019). "Butturff Wins In Lubbock For Third Title Of 2019". FloBowling.com. Retrieved July 1, 2019.
  10. Schneider, Jerry (November 3, 2019). "Jakob Butturff Shrugs Off Errant Shot to Win $50,000 Winner-Take-All Prize in 2019 PBA Clash". pba.com. Retrieved November 19, 2019.
  11. Schneider, Jerry (11 December 2019). "Jason Belmonte Wins Fifth Chris Schenkel PBA Player of the Year Award". pba.com. Retrieved 12 December 2019.
  12. Vint, Bill (January 23, 2019). "PBA REGIONAL UPDATE: BUTTURFF JOINS ELITE GROUP WITH 20TH REGIONAL TITLE". pba.com. Retrieved January 24, 2019.
  13. Spigner, Bill. "Do Not Try This Approach at Home" (PDF). Bowlers Journal (March 2017 issue). Retrieved October 12, 2018.
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