Despite greats like Phil Taylor, Michael van Gerwen, and Adrian Lewis, the Professional Darts Corporation is probably unheard of in the United States.
Darts, the common bar game, has been taken to a new level by The Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) the leading league in professional darts. Founded in 1992, the league has grown to include players from all over the world and holds tournaments in the UK, Germany, Austria,
Gibraltar, and the Netherlands. These tournaments, however, are rarely seen by American audiances.
Like golf, professional dart players travel the world to compete in tournaments. The most prestigious of these tournaments is the PDC World Cup hosted in Paris. The tournament, featuring players from 24 countries, is a televised event and can have up to 10,000 spectators. Spectators commonly go to the matches in various costumes and disguises such as the Seven Dwarfs and Nemo.
“I was flipping through the channels when I accidently turned it on and it was professional darts. I found it surprisingly entertaining and the people in costumes made it funny.” said sophomore Brendan Fletcher.
The official rules of the PDC are outlined in the PDC Handbook, establishing the official throwing distance at 7 feet 9.25 inches and outlining how the game is actually played.
Many people probably take Professional Darts as a joke but the game takes a surprising amount of math and accuracy.
“To become a professional you have to put in as much time as any another professional,” said junior Matt Goss.
In a game of darts each player starts with 501 points and works their way towards zero by throwing the darts into specific areas of the board. On the board there are two green and red circles; if the darts is thrown into the outer circle, that dart is multiplied by two. If the dart is thrown into the inner circle the score is tripled. The object of the game is to get to zero without going under while ending on a double.
“Darts is hard at first, but after playing for a while you start to pick up the game,” said Goss.