Hildesheim played host to the penultimate PDC Development Tour weekend of the season.
You know, that German place in the back of beyond where countless players are generally forced to wear their mates’ clothes and borrow darts whilst, at the same time, wondering which country their luggage ended up in. You get the gist!
As is typical, there were five events in total over the course of the weekend. They produced five different winners and a nine-darter to boot. More on that shortly.
It’s always best to kick these things off in chronological order, so we begin on Friday morning with event 16 of the year.
First into the winners’ circle was the kid I like to refer to as the ‘Leaning Tower of Tungsten’ – Owen Bates. Why? Because his throwing action, at almost a 45-degree angle when on the oche, defies physics.
Given Owen is pretty tall, by all rights he should topple over. Hey, maybe he sleeps like that and has had plenty of practice balancing. I’ll have to ask Cam Crabtree the answer to that particular question, I guess!
Aside from a bit of a quarter-final scare against home-soil lad Jan Schmidt, Bates barely dropped a leg. Remove the four he conceded to the German and that tally was just another four. That was largely because he whitewashed Kaya Baysal in the final, the youngster proudly adopting his father’s Turkish nationality for the first time over the weekend.
Whether that was a factor for Kaya, having a flag from a far more exotic place than Burnley – which wouldn’t be hard – next to his name, or purely a coincidence, we will never know. But he is one for the future, whether he represents Turkey, England or Mars.
Later that day, Hollywood actor Samuel Jackson took a break from his busy acting schedule to chance his arm on the Development Tour and, blow me, only went and won it. Of course I jest. It was an entirely different person who just happens to share the same name – perhaps not with the ‘J’ as his middle initial.
The Pulp Fiction star… oh, hang on, we’re not doing that anymore, are we? I’ll start again.
The lad from Oxfordshire raced into the quarter-finals, where he edged past another highly rated Englishman in Jack Drayton before seeing off earlier victor, Master Bates, to reach the final. Once there, he defeated Jan Schmidt, whose surname rather gives away the fact he is, in fact, German.
Day two in the massive former Aircraft Hangar House saw us treated to an all-Dutch showdown in the final between Jamai van den Herik and Angelo Balsamo, whose name sounds like something you’d put on a salad.
In the semi-finals, Angelo had halted Sam Jackson’s hopes of going back-to-back, while Jamai just managed to squeeze past Belgium’s Mylo Michiels. Not literally, although some of these youngsters who enjoy the odd pint aren’t the easiest to get around in those little blue-panelled darts booths.
Van den Herik was then the better player in the final, recording a healthy 90-plus average that proved too much for his compatriot as he eventually prevailed 5-3.
Oh, and also during Event 18, the hugely talented Archie Self – who on Facebook has changed his surname to ‘Darts’, which is rather ironic – smashed in a nine-darter. To look at him, you’d think he was more likely to steal your bag of Haribo than pin the perfect leg. But these talented kids are getting younger by the day. There are probably new-borns in the maternity ward hitting maximums these days.
Saturday night gave us the first home-soil winner of the weekend in the form of Yorick Hofkens. The Shakespearean-named arrow-smith – alas, poor Yorick, and all that jazz.
The German rallied back from an early 2-0 deficit against Adam Gawlas to force a last-leg shootout. I love the crazy Russian (as we affectionately call him – even though I know he’s from Czechia. Long story… don’t ask). But a full-distance game involving him does require patience.
Fortunately for Hofkens, he had enough of that particular quality to get the job done.
Then it was an early finish for the kids on Sunday with just the one event. It gave us a maiden champion in Lenny Schlüter, who nicked the deciding leg to deny hotshot Henry Coates in the final.
Not many Germans I know are called Lenny, but there you go. This particular one is a teenager – as are many of the players in that room – and, after trailing 4-2, it’s a testament to the young man’s ability, guile and tenacity that he recovered against such a strong player to grab the honours.
Let’s not forget, Coates recently won a PDC ProTour. That’s just how good he is. So fair play to Lenny, even if he does share the same first name as perhaps the most annoying British comedian in history. If you know, you know.
That’s a wrap from Hildesheim. It’s Wigan next for the last quartet of events, as well as the PDC World Youth Championship qualifiers. Oh and just before we go, this is how the Order of Merit looks after the weekend – top dozen only. I don’t have that much time to list everyone!
