McEwan: Darts’ appeal shines harsh light on golf’s shortcomings

Waddling to the oche to the tune of ‘Jackie Wilson Said’ by Dexy’s Midnight Runners, few would ever have confused Jocky Wilson with one of the world’s foremost athletes.

The vodka-swigging, chain-smoking Fifer cut a squat figure. At only 5ft 4in tall and weighing close to 110kgs, some cruelly joked that he was almost as wide as he was tall.

But what a talent. A two-time World Professional Darts champion and a record four-time winner of the British Professional Championship, Wilson helped catapult the sport (if it is, indeed, a sport) into the mainstream during the 1980s. Alongside contemporaries such as Eric Bristow, Bob Anderson and John Lowe, he found fame if not fortune.

He passed away in 2012, two days after his 62nd birthday, dogged as he had been by various health issues over a number of years. What he would make of what darts has become, we will never know but it’s reasonable to assume he’d be impressed, particularly with the PDC World Championship.

Staged at the Alexandra Palace in London from December 15 to January 3, its most recent instalment featured 96 players hailing from Hastings to Hong Kong. They battled it out for a £2.5million purse and a top prize of £500,000.

It is reckoned that 3,000 people attended each of the 28 sessions of the championship, with Wednesday’s final watched live on Sky Sports by a record audience of over 4.8million, with a peak of 3.71million – the highest-ever non-football peak on Sky Sports.

For context, the most-watched TV broadcast in the UK on Christmas Day was the King’s speech, which had 5.9million, following by the Strictly Come Dancing Christmas special, with 5.3million viewers.

So, bang goes the theory that if you put something on Sky, nobody gets to see it.

That’s an accusation that has been levelled time and again as it relates to golf. Critics of the Open Championship slipping behind Sky Sports’ paywall have wailed that taking it away from terrestrial telly has had a negative impact on participation – a flimsy argument that pays no mind to the participation peaks and troughs sustained during the 60 years it was shown on the BBC, and similar ebbs and flows since it moved to Sky in 2016.

It’s also important to note that the viewing figures for this year’s darts final were likely inflated by the involvement of 16-year-old sensation Luke Littler. Not even a twinkle in his old man’s eye as Tiger Woods was wrapping up major number twelve, Littler captured the imagination of the British public with his extraordinary run to the final. His was a legitimately remarkable story that transcended the sport.

The time of year that the championship is staged is also significant. As somebody on Twitter noted, it’s “perfect stay-indoors” viewing and has cemented itself as a part of the festive calendar. At a time of year when there’s little else happening by way of live sport, darts has carved a nice little niche for itself. Would it be as popular or as likely to get air-time at the height of the summer? Unlikely.

With that said, there is much that golf can learn from darts’ escalating popularity.

For one thing, it is exceptionally fast paced. There’s no dithering, no laborious pre-shot routines, no drawn-out rules discussions. It’s just dart, dart, dart, dart – precisely what this increasingly impatient world and its short attention span demands. Golf’s issues with pace of play have been documented ad nauseum but to no particular avail. The slowest players have found ways to game the system and make a fundamentally slow sport even slower. Until the powers-that-be address that problem, it will continue to be one.

There other factors, too. Darts fans are encouraged to make noise; golf crowds are not. Darts is accessible; golf has had some, ahem, issues on that front. Darts is easy to follow; golf takes some learning. And without wishing to instigate a class-war, darts’ roots can be found in the pubs and social clubs of the UK; golf typically skews to a much more middle-class, affluent demographic.

All that is true and, to varying degrees, meaningful.

However, the single biggest difference? The players and their personalities.

Not only does darts have more characters than professional golf, it also has more relatable characters. There’s something about the everyman physique and disposition of the best darts players that endears them to ardent and casual viewers alike. Take former world No.1 Steve Beaton. The 59-year-old Londoner made a record-extending 33rd consecutive World Championship appearance this year. After losing in the first round, he went back home to North Walsham in Norfolk. One of the greats of the game, he never turned professional, despite being good enough. Instead, he combines darts with his day job as a driving instructor. People hail him as a ‘legend’.

The point being there are no darts players living on Jupiter Island surrounded by a fleet of supercars. The best players in the sport (and I’ve decided it is one) look like ordinary people and behave like ordinary people because they are ordinary people. They use budget airlines instead of private jets. You’ll probably bump into them in Tesco. They don’t separate themselves from the rest of society because heaven forbid they should part of it. They are every bit as talented in their fields as Rory McIlroy and Scottie Scheffler are in theirs and they train exceptionally hard. But they have, for the most part, retained their collective relatability.

That’s important for a number of reasons, not least because people are drawn to people who resemble their own reflection. We’re a hopelessly narcissistic species in that sense. But that, in part, is why John Daly is so enduringly popular. Darts is basically wall-to-wall John Dalys.

Let me put it another way: who would you rather go for a drink with – Eric Bristow or Patrick Cantlay?

Even the nicknames are better. From ‘Snakebite’ to ‘Superchin’ via ‘Pie Man’, ‘The Quiff’, ‘Hawaii 501’ and ‘Frosty The Throw Man’, darters (or is it dartists? dartisans? darticipants?) go by some of the quirkiest and cleverest monikers in sport. Compare that with golf. Vijay Singh is the ‘Big Fijian’ because he’s big and from Fiji. Phil Mickelson is ‘Lefty’ because he’s left-handed. Miguel Angel Jimenez is ‘The Mechanic’ because he likes cars and stuff.

Sigh.

Characters matter. For the most part, people have very little interest in po-faced multi-millionaire Rolex ambassadors going about their business with all the vim and vigour of a laptop. That’s the single biggest reason why even the Ryder Cup – the most viewer-friendly and transcendent event in the game – attracted an average of 785,000 viewers on Sky last year (a record!) whilst darts counts its audience in millions.

Golf is great, don’t get me wrong. It just takes itself much too seriously and, as a result, in any battle for the public’s affections – a fight you can’t help but think will become increasingly meaningful as a splintered society inevitably if not immediately consolidates anew – it will struggle to compete.

Such are the slings and arras of outrageous fortune.

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Michael McEwan is the 2023 PPA Scotland ‘Columnist of the Year’ and ‘Writer of the Year’

Michael McEwan is the Deputy Editor of bunkered and has been part of the team since 2004. In that time, he has interviewed almost every major figure within the sport, from Jack Nicklaus, to Rory McIlroy, to Donald Trump. The host of the multi award-winning bunkered Podcast and a member of Balfron Golfing Society, Michael is the author of three books and is the 2023 PPA Scotland 'Writer of the Year' and 'Columnist of the Year'. Dislikes white belts, yellow balls and iron headcovers. Likes being drawn out of the media ballot to play Augusta National.

Deputy Editor