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. Butturff and his Team USA teammates won the 2019 Weber Cup over Team Europe. At the 2019 Pan American Games in Peru, Butturff and Team USA teammate Nick Pate earned a gold 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.
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 QubicaAMF World Cup on November 11 in Hermosillo, Mexico. 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. 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 FamerEarl Anthony as the only two bowlers to be the top qualifier in back-to-back U.S. Opens during the modern era. Coincidentally, Anthony also lost the final match in both years. 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. 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. 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. Butturff won his seventh PBA title and third of the 2019 season on June 30 at the Lubbock Sports Shootout. 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. Butturff finished second to Jason Belmonte in the 2019 PBA Player of the Year voting. 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. 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 to reach the plateau. Butturff has rolled 18 career perfect 300 games in PBA competition, including the PBA's 28th televised 300 game, which he bowled on July 18, 2020 in the seeding round for the PBA Tour Playoffs broadcast on CBS Sports Network.
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.” 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 urethanebowling ball instead of reactive equipment.
Career statistics
Statistics are through the last complete PBA Tour season.
