Phil Taylor (a.k.a PhilThePowerTaylor) is undoubtedly best described as the greatest professional darts player ever. Today, the great man of the arrow and Oche is ranked ninth in the current Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) ranking.
The PDC ranking is measured by the amount of money which a player has earned over a period of one year prior to the date of evaluation.
Phil’s professional darts career that spanned close to 2 decade witnessed the raise and transformation of the reputation and stature of professional darts from been a mire in-bar game for drunkards to a major televise sports with global acceptance. Today, professional darts attracts great followership in match venues and televise viewership which can be attributed to the quality of performance which Phil and other great players such as Eric Bristow, Dennis Priestly,John Part, Raymond Van Barneveld etc. brought to the sport.
Phil Taylor did hold records for high scoring in darts. His three-dart average per match records were the highest in the history of the game. No player has a winning head-to-head record against him. Taylor has a 57.41% win rate against Michael van Gerwen. Taylor is the first darts player to win more than £1 million in prize money.
Phil Taylor who is from Burslem, United Kingdom success in darts can be best described as legendary when compared to great athlete in other sports. His trophy chest consist of awards as 16 times PDC World Champion, a record which no other player has been able to rival still this day. Before moving to the PDC, Phil was 2x world Champion at British Darts Organisation (BDO) lakeside, 1990 and 1992. And, he has appeared iin the Premier League 13 times which he won 5 times.
Here is what Wikipedia wrote about Phil in the section about his awards and records.
” On 9 January 2007, Taylor won the 2006 PDC Player of the Year award at the inaugural PDC Awards Dinner held at the Dorchester Hotel in London’s Park Lane. He was one of ten nominees for the BBC Sports Personality of the Year award in 2006; the award went to Zara Phillips. Taylor was voted the 2007 Fans’ Player of the Year following a vote conducted on the website Planet Darts. He received the award at the annual PDC Awards Dinner in January 2008. After his fifteenth World Championship victory, Taylor was made an inaugural inductee to the Stoke-on-Trent Sporting Hall of Fame on 7 January 2010. Awards excluding the Hall of Fame are handed out the following January.
- PDC Player of the Year: 2006, 2008–2012
- PDC Fans’ Player of the Year: 2007–2011
- Best PDC Pro Tour Player/Floor Player: 2008, 2009
- PDPA Players’ Player of the Year: 2008, 2009
- Best Televised Performance of the Year: 2016
- PDC Nine-Dart Club: *2006, *2007, *2008, −2008, *2009 (x2), *2010, *2011, −2011, *2012 *2015, −2015 *Gold Pin Badge (Televised)/–Silver Pin Badge (Non-Televised)
- PDC Hall of Fame: 2011
- BBC Sports Personality of the Year (Runner Up): 2010 “
Now, Phil is earning less from darts with time. Does his continue continue stay on the Oche demystify the once dreaded legend? Or, should he bow out of active play to retain and maintain the great reputation that has been built over the many years of hard work? Time will tell.
