We’ll start with Luke Littler. Yes, I know he’s a darts player/prodigy but he’s been rather hard to ignore lately. I’m not going to get into whether becoming world darts champion at 17, which is what Littler did at Ally Pally some 10 days ago, is a more remarkable achievement or not than Tiger Woods winning his first major championship, the 1997 Masters, aged 21. But, at least in some quarters, the two sports are being spoken of in the same breath.
In a post-Littler win interview with the Sunday Times, Barry Hearn, the founder of Matchroom Sports, which runs the darts, noted: “Tiger was playing golf at 2. Littler has been playing darts since birth, it seems like.” The Sky audience for Littler’s final against Michael van Gerwen was higher than for any non-football broadcast over the previous year, including Formula 1. And golf.
Hearn made it clear. “The target is golf.” He said: “If darts can reach every corner of the world, which it will do in the next five years, it will be a massive participation sport and easily do more numbers than golf. Its viewing figures already slaughter golf but sometimes things are valued on perception. Why does a sponsor pay £10 million for a golf event and £1 million for a darts tournament when the numbers are so clearly stacked in our favour? We are changing that perception. It takes time [but] we are the working man’s golf.”
Obviously, ‘working’ people play golf, too, but one has to concede the entry-level cost for taking up golf is comparatively high. On the other hand, one could newly acquire three darts, some spare flights and a dartboard for under 50 quid. And from a television perspective, the contrast is marked. Golf is played out over say 180 acres and costs a fortune to produce. Darts takes place in one room, where the only extraneous stipulation seems to be the supply of beer.
Which leads us on to the indoor-simulator world of Tomorrow’s Golf League (TGL), which debuted in Florida last Tuesday evening. It has a prize pot of nearly £17 million, pretty paltry by professional golf standards but one should remember that Littler won ‘just’ £500,000 for lifting the most important trophy in his sport, about a fifth what Xander Schauffele received for winning the Open at Troon last summer.
That is doubtless part of Barry Hearn’s food for thought. It was therefore quite funny to hear the TGL golfers announced to the fans as if they were ‘darters’ – “Shaaaaaaaane Lowry”. (Having been on the winning team – The Bay Golf Club, since you asked – Lowry had the best line: “I’m going to be the Scottie Scheffler of indoor golf!”) In this format Tiger Woods should be able to be a genuine competitor; he essentially won’t need to walk. After his multiple injuries and recent 49th birthday, that’s a break he could do with. TGL may or may not save golf (from what?) but it looks, short-term at least, likely to do that for Woods as a player. “I’m part of the playing process,” he said. “I haven’t been part of the playing process in a while.”
Like darts, TGL effectively takes place in one enormous room. As for Luke Littler, as of January 21 he will legally be able to drink rather than merely fling one of those ubiquitous beers.
You can follow Robert Green on Twitter @robrtgreen and enjoy his other blog f-factors.com as well as his golf archive on robertgreen-golf.com
