The series of darts champions profiles we've started a few weeks ago couldn't possibly exclude Philip Douglas Taylor. Philip is a former professional darts player and one of the biggest and most famous darts players in the world, he won numerous major darts titles and he will surely remain in history for his striking victories. Let's discover together this darts champion's story.
The Man
Philip Taylor was born on 13 August 1960 to Dough and Liz Taylor in Burslem, Stoke-on-Trent. When he was 16, Philip decided to leave school and start work. He had several jobs as a young men including as a sheet metal worker. Philip wasn't the type of person who realizes they've got a special talent from an early age. He was passionate about football and darts and enjoyed playing both but he never decide to take further steps to leverage his skills and get to a professional level until 1986. That year, Philip moved to a terraced house in Burslem. This change brought him close to Eric Bristow's pub called the Crafty Cockney. This was an emblematic place that would contribute to helping Philip become a pro darts player as he started practicing regularly and realized his potential.
A few months after he moved house, Philip's wife Yvonne made him a present for his birthday, one that would greatly contribute to his future career - a new set of darts. With those darts, Taylor started practicing regularly, each week, at Bristow's pub and not only. Through constant training and by playing against other passionate darters, Philip started enjoying competitions, and in 1986 he was already selected for the county team and started participating in Super League competitions. Seeing his talent, passion, and commitment, Bristow decided to sponsor Taylor by loaning him £10,000 the same year. This amount helped the future champion get started as a professional player. At the same time, the loan allowed him to provide for his family while focusing on his darts practice given that he had to give up working in the ceramic industry in order to hone his darts skills.
The Champion
Philip Taylor dominated the darts scene for more than twenty years. He managed to defeat many younger players that are still making headlines with their victories nowadays. Such were his skills that Philip managed to receive the well-deserved name "The Power". Throughout his career that spanned across two decades, Taylor won 214 professional tournaments. He achieved a record 85 major titles as well as a record 16 World Championships, which makes him the most prolific darts champion and a true legend for other players and aficionados. Taylor's fame went far beyond the toe line. In 2015, he was named one of the ten most prominent British sportsmen in the last 35 years by the BBC. Currently, he is considered the most successful darts player in history and, given the impressive number of trophies he managed to gather, probably the richest one as well.
The most impressive achievement of this professional darts player is having won eight consecutive World Championships between 1995 and 2002. Between 1994 and 2007, Taylor managed to reach 14 consecutive World Championship finals. Throughout his career, he participated in 21 world finals. He was ranked the best darts player in the world for thirteen years. Between 2006 and 2013, he held this title each year consecutively. The Power also won 70 PDC Pro Tour events and scored a record 11 televised nine-dart finishes. In total, he took part in 20 televised nine-dart finishes. Another record is the fact that he was the first person who managed to hit two nine-dart finishes during the same match.
Until 1993, Taylor played in British Darts Organisation (BDO) competitions. He was 6 times the PDC Player of the Year between 2006 and 2012. He was also nominated two times as the BBC Sports Personality of the Year. In 2011, The Power was inducted into the PDC Hall of Fame. He officially retired from the darts scene in 2018 after that year's World Championship.
There are many lessons to learn from this notorious darts champion. One is that you should never give up on your passion as you don't know how far it can take you. If you also practice darts and you're quite good at it, keep working on improving your skills and challenge yourself to become better with each throw. For this, you will also need reliable darts gear and this is why we're here.
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