16 Year Old Darts Prodigy Luke 'The Nuke' Littler Has Taken Over The Sport At The World Championships And Become An Overnight Sensation

Zac Goodwin - PA Images. Getty Images.

Hand up, I'm a giant sucker for sports prodigies. Anytime I hear about an up and coming star in the making who makes their debut with amazing success my ears perk up. Typically we're talking guys like LeBron James, Bryce Harper, Carlos Alcaraz and Connor McDavid. Darts is not usually my forte of sports to follow aside from when they come to MSG once a year and everyone gets hammered to watch. 

Well, a 16 year old by the name of Luke Littler caught my eye over the holidays. Okay that wasn't intended to come out the way it did, but all I'm saying is I'm fascinated by this fella and what he's been up to over the last ten days. 

Now some say this is the least believable 16 year old they've ever seen. They wouldn't be met with much pushback. Like how is this dude 16 and not a 35 year old with two kids and a heft 401k he's been contributing to for a decade? 

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Andrew Redington. Getty Images.

I'm not on this forum to break down if a teenager is in fact a teenager, but regardless he's burst onto the scene at these world championships and made everyone his bitch. He's a rising superstar and that's good enough for me. There's no advantage to being that young in darts. If anything he wished he was older so he could have made his debut sooner. FYI, you have to be 16 to play in the World Championships. 

Luke's parents had him throwing darts at just 18 months old. 

When he was eight, they did the smart, mature move and took him to pubs five nights a week to throw darts. I'm sure some might find that move unorthodox and unethical, but hey you know what? It paid off. You know why your kid sucks at darts? You weren't taking him to bars when he was eight. You didn't want it. The Littlers did. 

(BBC) "By the time he was 10 we knew he was too good for his age," Karl Holden, Littler's former coach at the St Helens Darts Academy, told BBC Radio 5 Live.

"He couldn't play in the PDC or the big time until he was 16, so we just let him enjoy himself and he's just worked his way through the ranks.

"He went from under-10s to under-14 leagues and, before he was 11, he was playing in the under-21s, just simply because he was too good for anybody else."

Littler's trophy cabinet has filled up quickly, having already won 12 adult titles and the 2023 PDC World Youth Championship.

At the age of 14, he hit a nine-darter during the Junior Darts Corporation (JDC) Masters Tournament, further demonstrating his undoubted potential.

And now? He's absolutely obliterated everyone in his path to get to the semifinals of the World Championships. 180s galore. Just a fucking marksman with a dart in his hand. He plays to the crowd, has a bit of cockiness to him, but is also humble at the same time. He described his life at home here. 

"[I] just wake up, play on my Xbox, have some food and have a chuck on the board, go to bed and that's it," he said.

The lad just plays video games and in his spare time smokes the best of the best in darts. Funny enough he met his current 21 year old girlfriend on Xbox just six weeks ago, after they bonded over….you guessed it…darts. That's true love folks. 

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Talk about scouting. Six weeks ago Littler was just a prospect who no one outside the darts world had any idea about. Now he's taken over that world and become a superstar. Quite the move by the girlfriend to luck her way into all this.

This match against Raymond van Barneveld was supposed to end his fairy tale run. The man is viewed as a legend in the sport and someone Luke looked up to as a kid. Littler dismantled him. 

And just a day ago the 16 year old was up to his old tricks again when he defeated Brendan Dolan with ease. 

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He started the tournament with 4,000 followers on Instagram and is now well over 300k

He's got soccer players like Aaron Ramsdale and Declan Rice coming up to him for pictures 

Obviously no one cares over here, but he's a true superstar across the pond. 

This afternoon he'll take on Rob Cross in the semifinals which by my quick research is set to start at 2:45PM EST. I genuinely have no idea how to watch this, but you'll figure it out like the rest of us. 

Littler is currently going off as a -135 favorite. Dude is playing with nothing to lose and has already seen himself soar up the world rankings list, taken home over six figures in prize money, and gained world notoriety. Only thing left to do is become the youngest PDC World Champion ever. Simple enough! The current youngest finalist was Kirk Shepherd who did it at 21. The youngest winner ever was Michael van Gerwen, who was 24 at the time. Littler is SIXTEEN!!! I'm in. I'm so in. We're doing darts in 2024 people and Luke Littler is our god. 

P.S. The Nuke is such an elite nickname for a darts player. 

P.P.S. If it comes out this is a 40 year old guy who is using an alias to get away from another life where he used to sell drugs and dangerous weapons on the black market I'll never stop laughing