 He won a number of important tournaments, played in four Ryder Cup matches between 1965 and 1973 and featured in the top 60 on the British and later European Tour Order of Merit every year from 1959 to 1978.Butler turned professional as a teenager in 1947, becoming an assistant to Bill Button at Harborne Golf Club, Birmingham.He played in the 1949 PGA Assistants' Championship, which was restarted that year, but finished a distant 38 strokes behind the winner.