Luke Littler just won the Grand Slam to go fifth in the PDC order of merit.
Fifth.
In his first professional year.
In a ranking system that accounts prize money over a two-year period.
The kid isn’t even 18 until two months.
Embed from Getty ImagesLittler smashed Martin Lukeman 16-3 in the final, winning his first 15 legs on the bounce. He averaged 107.08, the third highest Grand Slam final average ever. If it didn’t look good enough just watching him, the stats from this tournament show how good he is:
- He hit 60 180s through the tournament, breaking a record previously held by Adrian Lewis (52 in 2013). 12 of these were in the final.
- He averaged over 105 across the tournament.
- He averaged over 102 in all of his seven matches. Only two other players in history have averaged over 100 in all seven of their Grand Slam matches – Phil Taylor and Michael van Gerwen.
This is the company that Littler is keeping up with, at 17. The two greatest darts players ever.
I don’t like when the media wring dry the narrative of Littler as a teenage sensation, subjecting him to mass camera flashes and attention that could quite easily throw off someone young trying to focus on his sport. But as a darts fan, it is so hard not to be swept by this wave when he is hitting frankly stupid levels at his age. So I’m now part of the problem.
Littler has won 10 PDC titles in his debut year after the Grand Slam. Only three other players have ever won 10+ PDC titles in a season – Taylor (six times), van Gerwen (seven times), and Peter Wright (once). If you consider Taylor retired at 57, Littler has plenty of time to obliterate such records if he can sustain his ability and ambition for darts.
‘The Nuke’ is now the bookmakers’ favourite for the World Championship at the end of the year. This means he is ahead of world number one Luke Humphries, whose greatness is largely overshadowed in the media by their obsession with Littler.
Players recognise this. Van Gerwen told Express Sport in October: “I think the one person who gets penalised the most [from intense media scrutiny] is Luke [Humphries]. You [the media] only talk about Luke Littler and it is Luke Humphries [who] is the one calling the shots at the moment.”
Embed from Getty ImagesHumphries sits in a strange spot with darts fans. He is often called ‘boring’ across social media, possibly in contrast to Littler’s portrayal as a teenage enigma. It is easy to forget how good he is, especially since he sits at world number one with a prize pool of £1.7 million, almost double that of van Gerwen in second.
The Grand Slam was the first major TV final hosted on Sky (who host practically all the majors) that Humphries hasn’t appeared in since July 2023. He has been that good and that consistent.
It is no doubt the two Lukes are the men to beat in darts right now. Littler has three advantages over his elder – age, the media, and the fans.
The kid is just so marketable. Most darts fans don’t support a player like football fans do a club, but Littler is darts’ darling. He catapulted the sport into mainstream media after finishing runner-up at the World Championship at 16.
He has many qualities that make him hard not to adore, as a player and as a human being. He’s abnormally young. He has a slight arrogance about him that is captivating albeit polarising. He approaches certain checkouts through unorthodox combinations, making some statistically harder, just because he can. He loves double 10. And his favourite meal is a kebab.
His character makes it easy for the media to market him and for fans to get behind him. Another player that has this allure is van Gerwen: his ruthlessness, displayed through his iconic laser-green colour and walk-on; his chant; and his machine-like dominance from 2015-17.
Humphries doesn’t quite have this.
Maybe it is because he is contrasted with the marvel of Littler. He is a monstrously good darts player and his throw is fast and fluent. He is a huge Leeds football fan – his name stands for ‘Leeds United, Kings of Europe’.
Yet support for him does not come close to that of Littler, on social media and in arenas. He is prone to vilification by crowds, who often chant “Leeds are falling apart again” when he is losing a game.
It might not seem important competitively, but it is. Darts is such a mental game and you need to concentrate to perform your best, which is made much harder when thousands of fans are chanting against you.
Embed from Getty ImagesHumphries is aware of this, and tries to shake it off. He told the Guardian before becoming World Champion: “If I’ve got to be slightly boring to win major titles, like some people say, no problem… I’ve got thick skin. There is nothing anybody could say that would hurt or upset me.”
It is even more confusing that Humphries is disliked by some when you consider his battle with anxiety. Before the 2018 World Championship, he visited a cardiologist after feeling heart palpitations, yet was cleared. In mid-2019, Humphries considered quitting darts after suffering an anxiety attack during a match.
Humphries took time out to see a cognitive behavioural therapist. He returned to the sport four stone lighter and with improved mental health, and since he has surged to world number one.
It’s a beautiful comeback story, one you might assume would captivate fans and the media. But it hasn’t. Maybe it speaks to a larger issue within the hyper-masculine darts world, that a young lad who eats kebabs is lauded more than a man who battled mental health issues and came out on top.
Humphries doesn’t seem to mind though. As long as he can continue to block out any hate or wind-up attempts, we should continue to see an incredible darts player, and an incredible rivalry between the two Lukes.
Bring on the Worlds.
