Peter Butler

Who is Peter Butler?

Peter J. Butler is an English professional golfer.

Butler was born in Birmingham. He turned professional as a teenager in 1947. He featured in the top 20 on the European Order of Merit every year from 1960 to 1979 most of those seasons falling before the formal debut of the European Tour in 1972. He won fourteen European-Tour equivalent tournaments in the pre-Tour era, that last of them in 1971. He was Captain of the PGA in 1972.

The best finish for Butler in a major championship was a solo sixth at the 1973 Open Championship. He was also 36 hole co-leader at the 1966 Masters Tournament before finishing tied for thirteenth.

Butler was one of the founders of the European Seniors Tour and finished fourth on the Order of Merit in its 1992 debut season, even though at sixty he was ten years past the minimum age. His only senior win came the following year at the Lawrence Batley Seniors.

Butler played in the Ryder Cup in 1965, 1969, 1971 and 1973. At the 1973 Ryder Cup at Muirfield, he recorded the first ever hole-in-one in the history of the event. He also represented England at the World Cup in 1969, 1970 and 1973.