Luke Littler goes to Dortmund this weekend searching for the £120,000 needed to move to the top of the PDC Order of Merit – less than two years on from his debut at the 2024 World Championships.
The short nature of his meteoric rise raises the question of whether he has been the world’s best since day one?
Despite being only 16 and not having played in any other tour event up until that point, ‘the Nuke’ exploded onto the scene, dropping only two legs to take home a comfortable 3-0 victory with an enormous 106 average.
He then made short work of Andrew Gilding and Matt Campbell before facing darting legend Raymond van Barneveld in the fourth round where another mind boggling 105 average propelled Littler to a 4-1 victory.
He came into the competition as a curiosity with nothing to lose, with Phil Taylor saying he was “the best 16-year-old” he had ever seen.
The current world number two missed a crucial double in the final which would have seen him take a 5-2 lead.
He admitted it “would have changed everything” giving him a comfortable three set advantage in a first to seven match.
Only a few weeks later at the Bahrain Darts Masters, the Nuke took home his maiden PDC Tour event which was quickly followed four months later by his first televised major, the Premier League final, where he took down Luke Humphries and became the youngest winner of a televised PDC major event.
In both mentioned events, he hit nine darters, a feat he has already achieved on eight occasions, only 16 shy of the record for most career ‘nines’ of 24, held by Michael (MVG) van Gerwen.
2025 has been comfortably the best of his short career thus far. A shaky start to his second attempt at the World Championships was quickly settled and he took home darts’ premiere event only 12 months on from his pro tour debut, dominating legendary MVG 7-3.
He also won the Ballon d’Art trophy thanks to scoring more 180’s than anyone else in the tournament.
Since then, the world champion has added a further three major titles and is entering every event as the comfortable favourite, 9/4 for this weekend’s European Championship.
We’ve seen young players break onto the scene and go on short bursts of form in the past. Josh Rock at the 2023 World Championships or Callan Rydz are a couple examples, but naturally thanks to age and experience they dropped off, with only Rock recovering some of that ability in recent competitions.
However, none to the level that Littler found. Since debut, he has competed and dominated with all the biggest names in the sport, never needing a ‘settling in’ period and his £1.7m prize winnings since debut more than show for this.
Had it not been for the now infamous miss on double two, it would have been likely he’d have become only the second player to take home the Worlds on debut, and at just 16, would’ve become the first player ever to hold both youth and pro world titles at the same time.
Never has a player come on to the pro tour and perform at the level and consistency of The Nuke. It’s an ability that, despite the undeniable quality of rival Luke Humphries, makes you feel like the current world number two will easily win every event he competes in.
