Believe it or not, there was a time when the moment of sporting perfection that is a nine-dart finish was as rare as hen’s teeth. These days, they arrive with the regularity of planes landing at Heathrow or JFK. Already this year, the PDC had logged seven perfect legs away from the live television lens before Luke Humphries struck the first televised nine-darter of the season against Luke Woodhouse at the Winmau World Masters.
All told, Cool Hand’s moment of perfection was number 105 as far as nine-darters captured by the TV cameras are concerned. The very first? More than forty years ago, and famously delivered by the legendary John Lowe.
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That original televised nine-dart finish arrived not with fireworks, but with quiet astonishment. On 13th October 1984 at the World Matchplay, Old Stoneface calmly dismantled the impossible, finishing 141 with T17, T18 and D18 after two maximum 180s. He walked away with £102,000 and the title, although the moment was not broadcast live – nor was Paul Lim’s iconic World Championship nine-darter in 1990.
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Live television finally caught up in 2002. Shaun Greatbatch delivered the first ever live broadcast nine-darter at the Dutch Open, before Phil Taylor detonated perfection on British television at the World Matchplay later that year. Taylor would go on to redefine excess, landing an astonishing 11 televised nine-darters, more than anyone before or since. Remarkably, he never managed one at the World Championship, coming agonisingly close in the 2018 final when his dart drifted onto the outside wire of double 12.
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Records have continued to bend ever since. Luke Littler became the youngest player to throw a televised nine-darter, achieving the feat at just 16 years and 363 days during the 2024 Bahrain Darts Masters. Entire tournaments have felt the shockwaves too. The 2007 International Darts League became the first event to witness two nine-darters, while history fractured again in 2010 when Taylor became the first man to hit two in a single match, a feat later emulated when Michael van Gerwen produced two, but in the stripped down streaming version of broadcast.
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Innovation arrived with Brendan Dolan, who rewrote the rulebook by producing the first double-in double-out nine-darter at the World Grand Prix in 2011. Others followed, chaos multiplied, and symmetry occasionally emerged – none more spectacularly than in the 2023 World Championship final, when Michael Smith completed a nine-darter in the same leg that van Gerwen missed by a single dart, prompting Wayne Mardle’s immortal I can’t speak!
Nine-darters have continued to surface at the World Championship, from William Borland’s match-winning miracle to Christian Kist and Damon Heta adding fresh chapters in 2024. Bizarrely, the recent PDC World Darts Championship passed without a single perfect leg – something you would have received generous odds on given the talent and magical leg specialists on show.
Now, the 2025 Ally Pally champion has put the record straight by pinning the first televised nine-darter of the new season. It would be a brave person to bet against many more following in quick succession.
Perfection in darts is no longer mythical. It is documented, categorised, dissected – yet every time it happens, it still feels like sorcery.
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