Darts is ashamed of nothing and comfortable in its own skin. Unfortunately, golf is the complete opposite

It’s the season of ‘Boring, boring table’, ‘Please don’t take me home’, and the Touré brothers.

It’s the season of celebrating former bouncers and bakers who call themselves ‘The Pie Man’ and wear oversized shirts blazoned in more colours than a snooker table.

It could be quite literally anyone standing on the oche at Alexandra Palace in North London – sporting heroes, murderous dictators – and the crowd of intoxicated, hysterical middle-aged men would cry at the top of their lungs for a 180.

The PDC World Championship of Darts is the embodiment of what that sport has become. Still a pub game played by you and me with a pint in one hand and three little tungsten arrows in the other, the professional sphere has burst through such a high ceiling that even the promotional masterminds of Matchroom Sport would surely admit some shock.

From the 2026/2027 championship, the event is moving into Ally Pally’s Great Hall, taking the tournament capacity to a staggering 180,000. The demand for a sport in which you can barely see what’s going on if you’re more than 10 feet from the board is staggering, and is one of sport’s greatest success stories in general.

Its current growth and popularity are spearheaded by 18-year-old Luke Littler of Warrington, a nine-time major champion who has not long passed his driving test. The sport has harnessed his personality and backstory to the point where he is a household name. He draws in millions of fans.

Last year, an average of 2.72 million people watched Littler beat ‘Mighty’ Michael van Gerwen in the final, with the peak audience reaching 3 million. Granted, a teenager is taking the sport by storm and showing generational talent, but regardless, there are so many people now watching.

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I wouldn’t ask the powers that be in golf to make players wear nicknames on the back of their shirts, or perform cringe dad-dancing with pom poms when they arrive on the first tee, but surely you can learn from how a sport like darts, seemingly with little resources compared to the scale and popularity of golf, can generate such explosive interest.

How can golf learn from darts?

Unquestionably, there will be personalities yet to be unlocked in golf. The DP World Tour social media team do a great job of engaging with players, creating challenges and fun features that make for great viewing online, but still, this is only scratching the surface.

Professional golfers are very locked-in individuals. It is a game that needs sharp focus from the moment they wake up to the second they strike their first tee shot. But take someone like Marcus Armitage, who once joined NCG for 18 holes at Royal Birkdale.

From Salford, Armitage captured the hearts of golf fans everywhere when he won the 2021 Porsche European Open and later cried for his mother Jean, who died of cancer when he was only 14.

Now 38, he recently told a story on a DP World Tour podcast about how he once abandoned a practice round at the Dubai Desert Classic, so he could run off to the driving range and ask Tiger Woods to sign a red Nike shirt for him.

Now, we all look for Armitage on the leaderboard. We all want him to win, but this flamboyant lover of boxing and bulldogs is an anomaly. We want more, more like darts which have flamboyance oozing from the oche.

They are distinctly different sports. Darts is fast-paced, and matches don’t last long. It requires one action with one arm, whereas golfers must synchronise many parts of their bodies to hit the perfect shot. This speaks to why golf takes so long. The quest for precision, especially when big money is at stake, becomes a tough watch at times.

However, this highlights an obvious issue with golf that has existed since the prime of Jocky Wilson and Eric Bristow. It shouldn’t take as long as it does but, unfortunately, it does.

Crowd size, shot difficulty, long walks, and weather conditions are factors that darts players don’t have to contend with, but there is something to be said about its rapid rhythm and how it benefits the consistency of the players’ performance. If you watch Littler or van Gerwen, two of the biggest darts stars of the last decade, the arrows are gone from their hands before the smurfs behind them can finish their swig of Carling.

However, most importantly, darts knows what it is. Darts knows that its demographic is men aged between about 25 and 50 who love drinking beer. Darts knows that these men love daft humour. Darts knows that these men love watching other men play a pub game on a huge stage. They see themselves in the mirror.

Darts takes us back to our roots, back to the corners of the local that you couldn’t see for thick cigarette smoke and empty glasses. The players might not consume alcohol on stage anymore, but backstage might tell a different story.

Matchroom Sport know this. Its founder, Barry Hearn, began making his fortune in snooker halls in the 1970s, promoting the sport many see as the close, much-loved brother of darts. It has grown mightily, but has done so by embracing the target audience and giving them what they want. Darts is a sport comfortable in its own skin and will not change for anyone.

Now, golf should definitely be taking notes. Golf is a game of tradition, etiquette and respect. There is a place for intense competition, whether you are trying to win the Ryder Cup or your weekly medal, but it all ends with a handshake and a ‘well done’. It is a sport with a rich and proud history, with golf courses having existed for centuries. They all have their own incredible stories to tell.

It instils good behavioural values and companionship. It is addictive, and like many sports, the quest to improve keeps bringing us back, with those rare moments of finding the middle of the club face feeding the addiction.

But there are prime examples from the last few years where golf has tried, and might continue to try to be something that it’s not, and never will be. The Ryder Cup somewhat represents this theory to a T. The matches between Europe and the USA have become tribal, reaching a nadir last year at Bethpage Black, where horrific abuse was shouted at players, plus the now-accepted cheering of bad shots and missed putts.

These misgivings seem to be ignored though, brushed under the carpet with a broom labelled ‘This is the Ryder Cup. Stop complaining. Don’t like it, don’t watch it’. Stemming from the 1991 and 1999 renewals when the rivalry and atmosphere were most fierce, it’s an event that has evolved into something alien to the values I listed earlier, outside of the ropes anyway. And I don’t know what it is all in aid of.

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Then there is LIV Golf, the new Saudi-funded league that appears to hold golf event/festival hybrids during 14 weeks of the year. Booming music, vibrant colours and a contrived team format are among its strategies to appeal to a new audience and a younger audience that is apparently tired of the dull routine that the established order of the PGA Tour and the DP World Tour has cemented over generations.

Again, other than to fill the pockets of a handful of top players and other figures, I don’t know what it is in aid of.

Golf should be darts. Golf should embrace what it is good at and be proud of what it is. We like getting out of bed, putting on dorky clothes and trudging around muddy grass fields for miles and many hours.

We love walking through clubhouses, seeing old pictures and old wooden clubs in cabinets. We like the etiquette and the routine. Why does this mould, which has attracted so many millions to play, need to be broken?

It’s an individual sport. It isn’t tribal, and it isn’t football. We play golf for the reasons I’ve already outlined – the addiction, the outdoors. It is a sport that is passed down.

I didn’t start playing because I watched an event with music on each tee box, or because I was inspired by American fans abusing Rory McIlroy’s wife. I played it because my family played it, and you probably do as well.

Golf must be itself to thrive. Young people will come. They always have, but there are too many examples of the grand old game trying to wear cool trainers and sunglasses, when it would much prefer a warm fleece and corduroys.

While darts sits relaxed on a stool at the bar, golf sits shaking in the corner, worried about what everyone thinks of it.

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What did you make of the World Darts Championship this year? Do you think golf can learn from the World Darts Championship? How does the World Darts Championship attract so many eyeballs? Tell us on X!