In Orlando, Florida, one week, in San Diego the next. Taking second in an AAU national volleyball tournament. Surging for second in a junior golf world championship.
Ethan Butters, a junior at Gilbert’s Perry High School, nearly reached the pinnacle in two sports that couldn’t be more different. And he did so within seven days, with volleyball ending July 3 and golf July 10.
Ryan Tolman, Butters’ club and high school volleyball coach, was candid when asked if he’d ever heard of an athletic feat quite like this.
“Not even close,” Tolman said.
The 16-year-old in January declared his intent to focus on golf, and didn’t even play volleyball for Perry in the 2025 spring season. However, Butters wouldn’t be the golfer or athlete he is today without marrying the two together.
“Volleyball helps me with golf because of the strength training that I get out of it and like the fast twitch-like dynamic movements I get out of it,” Butters said. “Golf is a very mental game and having a really strong head is actually one of the biggest things in volleyball.
“My perfectionist mindset from golf also translates to volleyball, making me a little bit more refined and sharper.”
Tolman said he watched Butters last November in the final round of the AIA Division I Golf Championships at Laveen’s Aguila Golf Course, in which he finished third. With a puncher’s chance at the individual title on the short par-4 17th hole, Tolman noticed Butters pull out his driver without any hesitation. The gamble didn’t pay off with a birdie or eagle, but it spoke to Butters’ mentality and physical shape.
“His swing doesn’t change as he gets late in rounds and in tournaments just because he’s conditioned to last, and a lot of golfers aren’t,” Tolman said.
Butters’ fascination with golf began with plastic clubs and putting balls into cardboard boxes. The game quickly became an integral part of his childhood as Butters played every weekend with three of his uncles.
He competed in his first tournament before he was five years-old and in the U.S. Kids Golf World Championships in Pinehurst, North Carolina before he was six years old.
In April at Mesa’s Toka Sticks Golf Club, he qualified for another world championship: the Uswing Mojing Junior World Golf Championships at Torrey Pines’ South Course.
“He just has had that tournament golf lifestyle forever,” Lisa, Butters’ mother, said.
His volleyball timeline started a bit later and more casually.
Butters, beginning in fourth grade, played at a local YMCA with his parents and three younger siblings. Fast forward to seventh grade, and Butters stepped up his game and visibility by playing for Tempe’s Aspire Volleyball Club.
“He walked in the door and instantly our coaches saw a kid with some crazy talent,” Tolman said. “We had our team kind of already picked out, and this kid shows up and he’s better than all of them. … It was a match made in heaven.”
At 5-feet-7 and 145 pounds, Butters is a libero and his practicing, or “peppering,” partner Everett Wagner is one of eight fellow Perry Pumas on Aspire. This continuity was a big reason the Tempe club team got runners-up in the 16 Open division of the AAU Boys Junior National Volleyball Championships (June 30-July 3).
Going to battle with your friends is a thrill but falling just short is hard to swallow – the Aspire 16 Spiderman dropped the third and final set 16-14 to California’s Pulse 16-G. All three sets were decided by two points.
“When they lost nationals, it was like somebody died,” Lisa said. “I think the expectation was that they were actually going to win this year.”
“Before our last game when we lost in the finals, he kind of initiated … a little prayer on the court,” Wagner said.
But Butters’ state of devastation from a team loss quickly wore off with perhaps the most important individual task of his life just five days away.
Even though the focus was all on volleyball during AAU nationals in Orlando, Butters still brought his golf clubs along to keep his game sharp enough to compete.
“I ended up being really, really sharp come the tournament day,” Butters said. “I love doing them both (volleyball and golf) so much. I think that if I didn’t have the love for the game that I do for both, I definitely would not be playing.”
He trailed the eventual champion, Scottsdale’s Dylan Boenning, by five strokes entering the back nine in the third and final round. With a birdie on the par-5 18th hole – where Tiger Woods famously made a putt to force a playoff in the 2008 U.S. Open – Butters got within one of Boenning. A bogey-free 34 compared to Boenning’s 38 certainly made for an interesting finish.
“After we got home (from volleyball nationals), he said, ‘I’m utterly devastated,’” Lisa said. “When he got second at World’s, he was utterly stoked.”
“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.
Butters’ clutch performance that day made that hypothetical situation an easy one for Uyeshiro.
“I go, ‘Well, if we have a playoff hole, do you want to be that guy doing the playoff hole?’” Uyeshiro said. “And he’s like, ‘Absolutely.’ So I’m like, ‘There you go. That’s the guy that I want.’”
Butters, over years of high-intensity golf and volleyball competition, has developed sound “technical” skills and created repeatable motions in the eyes of Wagner.
That consistency has yielded other tangible results besides tournament success. Butters, as of Sunday, was ranked No. 206 on the nationwide Junior Golf Scoreboard and fifth-best in Arizona (No. 1 in the class of 2027).
He isn’t ready to blaze past high school yet, but Butters beginning June 15 could start speaking with college coaches and quite a few conversations have taken place. About a month into this process, Butters said he is considering seven programs including Arizona State, Stanford, USC and UCLA.