Depending of the era of darts that you prefer will more than likely influence who you think is the greatest darts player ever. For those fans of the 1970’s you might favour Jocky Wilson or Eric Bristow. For those who are a fan of the 1980’s might prefer Bristow, John Lowe or Dennis Priestly.
However I think it’s safe to say that to even the most biased darts follower Phil Taylor is the greatest darts player of all time. Anyone with 14 world championship victories will likely be in the discussion as the greatest and in this article we will outline why Phil Taylor is the greatest darts player ever.
Phil Taylor biography
Nicknamed “The Power” Phil Taylor was born in England 1960, leaving school to take up jobs such as making ceramic toilet rolls and in sheet metal works. It wasn’t until Taylor moved into a place that was near Eric Bristow’s Crafty Cockney pub where he started to take the game of darts seriously.
After being befriended by the world champ Bristow, who put in the hours training Taylor (and eventually sponsoring Taylor with a loan of £10,000 allowing Taylor to quit his job), Taylor’s game began to improve, eventually playing for his local county team in the Super League competition and eventually joining the BDO tour.
Early returns on the tour were poor Taylor as he was learning the ropes however in 1988 he won his first pro tournament the 1988 Canadian Open defeated then world champion Bob Anderson in the final.
After establishing himself at the top of the BDO in the late 1980’s and the early 1990’s winning the BDO world championship in 1990 (as a 125-1 chance) and 1992 as well as the World Masters in 1990 and events in the UK, Finland, Denmark and the US, Taylor was one of the key figures in the split in darts in 1993 becoming part of the PDC and very soon the undisputed top darts player in the world!
What occurred next was one of the most dominant performances across all sports, Taylor’s dominance in the game of darts was similar to that of Tiger Woods at his peak! Taylor won 8 straight PDC World Darts Championships (from 1995-2002) and 11 of the 12 PDC World Darts Championships from 1995 through to 2006.
In that period Taylor went on to win multiple World Matchplay titles, multiple World Grand Prix titles, UK Opens and Desert Classics along with countless other tournaments. It truly was one of the most dominant performances by a person in sports history!
Whilst the late 2000’s and 2010’s saw Taylor coming out of his darts prime he still won several more PDC World Championships, World Matchplay’s, Grand Slam’s, Master Tournaments around the world as well as attracting thousands and thousands of fanatics to all tournaments he played around the world. The first player to win over £1,000,000 in prize money, winning 16 World Darts Championships, Phil ‘The Power’ Taylor was the greatest darts player of all time and will likely always remain as the greatest darts player of all time.
Major Titles Won by Phil Taylor
- 16 World Championships (2 BDO, 14 PDC)
- 16 World Matchplay Titles
- 11 World Grand Prix Titles
- 6 Grand Slam Titles
- 6 Premier League Titles
- 5 UK Opens
- 5 Desert Classics
- 4 European Championships
- 4 Championship Leagues
- 3 US Opens
- 3 Player Championship Finals
- 1 Champions League
- 1 Masters Title
- Plus many other European, US and Australian titles during his illustrious career
Other Accolades for Phil Taylor at retirement
- Most 9 darts finishes in PDC history
- Record prize money won
- Most titles ever
- Most finals ever
- Most televised titles
- Highest ever average in a world darts tournament final
No matter how biased you may be to your favourite non Phil Taylor darts player, you have to admit that with the record that he accomplished over his career that Phil Taylor is the greatest darts player in history and likely to stay that way for a long time yet. The world championships streaks, the total prize money record (recently broken by Michael van Gerwen due the massive injection of sponsorship and prize money in recent years), the total number of titles, these won’t be beaten and The Power will go down in history as the greatest darts player of all time and must be on the short lists of greatest sportsman in history.