PDC Home Tour: Peter Wright joins daily darts event for fans missing live sport
If the view from the oche usually appears a bit samey, darts aficionados will be afforded an unusual fresh perspective by a new tournament that takes place in the players’ own homes. The PDC world champion, Peter Wright, will top the bill when the Home Tour starts on Friday, beginning an initial 32-night stretch that will draw back the curtain on how some of the sport’s major stars have kept in form during the Covid-19 shutdown.
While most major sports have been put on hold indefinitely, the individual nature of darts and joys of video-call technology have combined to create what the PDC describes as its “first ever home-staged event”. In presumably what will be a more sedate atmosphere than, for example, a December night at Alexandra Palace, it will bring together a different group of four players on each night, with the winner of each group going through to next month’s second phase.
The competition has initially been opened up to the 128 PDC tour card holders, meaning there are no plans for
Fallon Sherrock – who became the first woman to win a game at the PDC World Championship in December – to take part. That situation could yet change, for Sherrock or others who do not hold a tour card, if places become available.
Wright, the world No 2 who beat Michael van Gerwen on New Year’s Day to win his first world title, will get proceedings under way from 7.30pm on Friday when he faces Peter Jacques in a group that also includes Jamie Lewis and Niels Zonneveld. On Saturday, Gerwyn Price will take centre stage when he competes against Rowby-John Rodriguez, Ted Evetts and Luke Woodhouse.
On Sunday, Dave Chisnall is pitted against the former BDO world champion Scott Waites, Jan Dekker and Jonathan Worsley, while on Monday the first female tour card winner, Lisa Ashton, will face Ross Smith, Mickey Mansell and Geert Nentjes.
Competitors for subsequent nights are yet to be announced. The matches will be played over the best of nine legs, and will be broadcast on the PDC’s television channel via video connections from the players’ residences. Several bookmakers’ sites will also show the competition.
“It gives me great excitement that we are able to deliver live darts to fans in these unprecedented times,” the PDC chairman, Barry Hearn, said. “The PDC Home Tour will provide a regular supply of live sport to fans, showcasing the talent and unique characters of our players to both existing and new audiences. The event will give players a chance to play competitive darts in this down period in preparation for the return to normal action, whenever that may be.”
Sherrock has been among a number of past and present household names, including Raymond van Barneveld and Mike Webster, taking part in an invitational tournament run by the Modus management company that – similarly to the PDC’s new venture – is relayed from the players’ homes. That event began 10 days ago and will run until 2 May.
Top-level darts is mooted to resume in public on 30 July, with the Premier League aiming to pick up in Birmingham if no further changes to the schedule are enforced. That will mean the sport has, effectively, taken a fourand-a-half month break. It affords the
Home Tour particular appeal, with its format meaning it could conceivably stretch into June.
A blend of entertaining darts and fresh insight into the stars’ home furnishing preferences looks, on paper, a pleasant way to spend an otherwise fallow spell without live competition.