On January 5th 2025, Luke Littler created darting history as he became the youngest ever World Champion at 17. He did so by beating Michael van Gerwen 7-3 at the Alexandra Palace, where he claimed £500,000 and the Sid Waddell Trophy in incredible fashion.
To give you even more of an idea of how special the boy from Warrington is, in November 2021, Littler won his first senior title at the Irish Open, defeating Barry Copeland 6–2 in legs. This qualified Littler for the WDF World Darts Championship at 14 years old. Later that year, in Gibraltar, during the JDC (Junior Darts Corporation) MVG Masters tournament, he hit a nine-dart finish.
Then, in 2022, ‘The Nuke’ headed back to the Lakeside, where the WDF World Championship was being held, and he was a seed for the very first time. He was beaten 3–0 in sets by Dutchman Richard Veenstra, who set a record average for a World Championship match at the Lakeside.
Talking about impressive averages, the then 15-year-old Littler, during a warm-up tournament in Prestatyn’s Pontins Holiday Park, hit a 121.86 average in one of his wins. Moreover, later in 2022, he won the JDC Holiday Inn World Championship, beating Harry Gregory 5-0 in the final at Alexandra Palace. Then, just a month later, he made his PDC major debut in the 2023 UK Open in Minehead. He qualified through an amateur qualifier at Riley’s Sports Bar on his 16th Birthday.
He lost his fourth-round match against Adam Gawlas 10-8. In May 2023, Littler won the third season of the Modus Super Series, defeating Jacob Taylor 4-1 in the final. Then, in December of that year, he appeared in the PDC World Championship, where he was a 66-1 outsider.
He put aside former World Champions Raymond van Barneveld and Rob Cross in that tournament before losing 7-4 to Luke Humphries in the final.
Perhaps that was the making of the 17-year-old darting sensation, as in his first year as a professional darts player, he won the Bahrain Masters, Player Championship 1, 15, 20, Belgium Open, Austrian Open, Premier League, Poland Masters, Worlds Series of Darts and Grand Slam of Darts.