Goldflinger Luke Humphries was one in a bullion after landing the first £30,000 set of 18-carat arrows for a nine-darter.
On an expensive night for Premier League title sponsors BetMGM, Rob Cross followed him into the pantheon of perfect legs. And as Luke Littler bagged his second £10,000 bonus of the competition for winning the night in Brighton, he admitted there was a twinge of envy that he hasn’t joined the nine-dart party.
Luke the Nuke, who beat Nathan Aspinall 6-3 in the final, admitted: “I’m trying – I’ve got a few weeks left to hit one of my own. “But my main goal hasn’t changed – I want to finish in the top four and defend my title.
“I’ve always been confident in my own ability but this is probably the best I’ve played on a consistent basis. I can find the extra gears to dig myself out against the darts.”
BetMGM appointed luxury jewellers Humphrey and Hawkins to cast the £30k bespoke gift to any player who hit a nine-darter in this year’s tournament. And both Humphries and Cross cracked the golden code by the seaside.
Cool Hand Luke became the 11th player to hit a nine-darter in Premier League history, and his flawless 180, 180 and 141 on double 12 was the 17th such feat in all. It didn’t save Humphries from a 6-4 defeat by Cross, who averaged 111.19, but the world No.1 remains top of the league table.
Then former world champion Cross followed suit – with an unconventional treble 19, treble 16, double 18 to unlock the treasure chest – as he went down 6-5 to Aspinall. Better make that 12 different players and 18 nine-darters in the Premier League.
Humphries said: “It’s a nice second prize – I would have liked to win the game but when I first heard about it in Belfast I thought it would be a prestigious thing to win. A gold set of darts is a nice little bonus and I’ll enjoy receiving that.”
Humphries was the first player to hit a nine-darter in the Thursday night circus since Luke Littler’s perfect leg turned the tide in last year’s final. He added; “It’s a dream to do it on the big stage and the crowd went wild.
“I think the good darts would be too heavy in grams for me to use them in Nottingham next week, but it would be quite funny if I rocked up with them, wouldn’t it? It will be a nice moment to have – I wouldn’t sell them, I’ll put them on display in my house.
“When you’re up on stage, you’re not thinking about what you can win if you hit a ninep-darter but it was a nice one to hit on the big stage, regardless what you get for it. It took me a couple of legs to come down from it but I can’t take anything away from Rob – he played fantastic
“I’ve still made a great start to the Premier League – 15 points after fie weeks, I’ll take that every time and I’m looking good for the play-offs because 25, 27 points will probably get you in.”
Humphries was grateful that Sky Sports managed to capture the moment on a night when their worldwide TV coverage was persistently interrupted by a technical fault. One social media critic posted on Twitter: “Fair play to Sky Sports, constantly increasing their prices whilst showing us only half the darts tonight!”
Cross was too disappointed to miss out on a place in the final to talk after Aspinall came back from 4-2 down to beat him in the deciding leg.
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