At the Wetzlar Darts Gala in Germany Gerwyn Price and Michael Smith played each other in the final. When it was 3-3 and they started a sudden death leg they switched darts and then this happened…
We need more novelty stuff like this in televised darts, I wanna see a pairs comp where the partners are drawn out at random. “Number 1 Michael Van Gerwen, and he will partner…. Number 256 Hasan Haji” pic.twitter.com/sfLf0AlCUI
— DartsAnonymous (@anonymous_darts) January 28, 2024
Once again, it becomes clear what natural talents these players are and how effortlessly they can switch to different equipment. It rarely happens at this level that players throw with someone else’s darts, but sometimes, this situation arises out of necessity.
Recently, Liam Maendl Lawrence experienced the misfortune of his suitcase getting lost when he traveled to the Lakeside. His colleague, Jim Widmayer, kindly lent his spare set of darts to the 19-year-old German. Maendl Lawrence proved he could handle Widmayer’s darts as he won his match at the World Championship 2-1 in sets.
In another match, his luggage was still missing, and Widmayer’s darts were no longer available. Behind the scenes, Maendl Lawrence seemed to have decided to throw with a different set of darts. He did not use his own darts with the characteristic vibrating points, and that decision proved costly. He lost 3-1 in sets to the 54-year-old Martyn Turner and had to continue the search for his belongings before eventually heading back home.
But it can get even worse. Matthew Edgar once managed to travel to the MODUS Super Series but forgot something when packing his suitcase—his darts. On the first day of play, he had to play with someone else’s darts, and despite a decent average of 91.24, he lost the match to Jonny Clayton with a score of 6-5.
Consider also Ryan Meikle, who qualified for the Dutch Darts Championship played in Zwolle. The Englishman traveled to the venue via a flight to Schiphol but realized upon arrival that he had forgotten something—his suitcase.
He had traveled to Zwolle by train and had to spend another 3 hours traveling to get his suitcase, along with his clothing and darts, in time for the event.