The PDC Order of Merit is a world ranking system used by one of the darts organisations, the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC). Following the 2007 PDC World Darts Championship it superseded a world ranking system based on points being awarded for performances in ranking tournaments. [1]
The Order of Merit is similar to that employed in golf's European Tour. Prize money won during the previous two seasons is calculated and the rankings are determined from this money list. The Professional Darts Corporation adopted an Order of Merit system in 2007, which is based on prize money won over two years for the main Order of Merit and separate one-year rankings for other PDC Pro Tour events.
Players ranked 1 - 32 | |||
Rank | Change | Player | Earnings |
---|---|---|---|
1 | Luke Humphries | £1,479,500 | |
2 | Michael van Gerwen | £1,125,000 | |
3 | Michael Smith | £1,105,250 | |
4 | Nathan Aspinall | £641,500 | |
5 | Gerwyn Price | £626,000 | |
6 | Rob Cross | £585,750 | |
7 | Danny Noppert | £528,750 | |
8 | Peter Wright | £498,250 | |
9 | Jonny Clayton | £486,500 | |
10 | Dave Chisnall | £483,250 | |
11 | Damon Heta | £466,500 | |
12 | 1 | Dirk van Duijvenbode | £436,750 |
13 | 1 | Joe Cullen | £414,000 |
14 | Dimitri Van den Bergh | £398,000 | |
15 | Chris Dobey | £380,750 | |
16 | 1 | Ross Smith | £372,250 |
17 | 1 | Stephen Bunting | £364,750 |
18 | Andrew Gilding | £359,000 | |
19 | James Wade | £345,500 | |
20 | Ryan Searle | £345,250 | |
21 | Josh Rock | £326,000 | |
22 | Gabriel Clemens | £320,000 | |
23 | Martin Schindler | £297,750 | |
24 | Krzysztof Ratajski | £292,750 | |
25 | 2 | Gary Anderson | £278,750 |
26 | 1 | José de Sousa | £273,750 |
27 | 1 | Brendan Dolan | £262,500 |
28 | 2 | Daryl Gurney | £262,000 |
29 | Raymond van Barneveld | £231,500 | |
30 | 1 | Luke Littler | £218,500 |
31 | 1 | Scott Williams | £202,000 |
32 | Kim Huybrechts | £183,250 | |
*Change since 3 January 2023. |
Players ranked 33 - 64 | |||
Rank | Change | Player | Earnings |
---|---|---|---|
33 | Madars Razma | £172,750 | |
33 | 1 | Callan Rydz | £172,750 |
35 | Martin Lukeman | £165,250 | |
36 | Ricardo Pietreczko | £159,250 | |
37 | Ryan Joyce | £152,000 | |
38 | Luke Woodhouse | £149,000 | |
39 | Mike De Decker | £141,750 | |
40 | Jim Williams | £135,750 | |
41 | 2 | Gian van Veen | £130,000 |
42 | William O'Connor | £125,750 | |
43 | 2 | Keane Barry | £123,500 |
44 | 1 | Alan Soutar | £120,000 |
45 | 1 | Simon Whitlock | £118,750 |
46 | Ricky Evans | £116,000 | |
47 | 1 | Matt Campbell | £112,500 |
47 | Jermaine Wattimena | £112,500 | |
49 | 1 | Steve Beaton | £111,500 |
50 | 1 | Rowby-John Rodriguez | £111,250 |
51 | 1 | Adrian Lewis | £99,000 |
52 | 4 | Mickey Mansell | £96,000 |
53 | 2 | Boris Krčmar | £95,750 |
54 | Cameron Menzies | £95,500 | |
54 | 1 | Vincent van der Voort | £95,500 |
56 | 1 | Mensur Suljović | £92,500 |
57 | Jamie Hughes | £90,500 | |
58 | Ritchie Edhouse | £86,750 | |
59 | 1 | Florian Hempel | £86,250 |
60 | 1 | Adam Gawlas | £84,750 |
61 | 2 | Ryan Meikle | £82,250 |
62 | 2 | Ian White | £81,500 |
63 | Mervyn King | £81,250 | |
64 | 2 | Kevin Doets | £81,000 |
*Change since 3 January 2023. |
Players ranked 65th or lower | |||
Rank | Change | Player | Earnings |
---|---|---|---|
65 | Richard Veenstra | £68,500 | |
66 | Niels Zonneveld | £56,000 | |
67 | Lee Evans | £47,500 | |
68 | Dylan Slevin | £42,750 | |
69 | Keegan Brown | £32,750 | |
70 | Maik Kuivenhoven | £30,750 | |
71 | 1 | Stephen Burton | £29,250 |
72 | 1 | Jeffrey de Zwaan | £28,500 |
73 | Daniel Klose | £26,000 | |
74 | Karel Sedláček | £23,500 | |
75 | Arron Monk | £22,500 | |
76 | 1 | Robert Owen | £21,500 |
77 | 1 | Jurjen van der Velde | £20,750 |
78 | Jeffrey Sparidaans | £19,000 | |
78 | 1 | Pascal Rupprecht | £19,000 |
80 | 3 | Nick Kenny | £17,250 |
80 | Graham Usher | £17,250 | |
82 | 2 | Adam Smith-Neale | £16,750 |
83 | 1 | Graham Hall | £16,500 |
84 | 3 | Josh Payne | £15,500 |
85 | Geert Nentjes | £13,500 | |
86 | Ronny Huybrechts | £12,250 | |
87 | Owen Roelofs | £11,000 | |
88 | Adam Warner | £10,000 | |
89 | 1 | Robbie Knops | £9,750 |
90 | 1 | Danny van Trijp | £9,500 |
91 | Callum Goffin | £7,750 | |
92 | Jacques Labre | £4,750 | |
93 | James Hurrell | £4,500 | |
94 | Andy Baetens | £4,000 | |
95 | Paul Krohne | £3,500 | |
96 | Berry van Peer | £3,000 | |
96 | Michele Turetta | £3,000 | |
96 | 3 | Christian Perez | £3,000 |
99 | Leighton Bennett | £2,500 | |
100 | Mario Vandenbogaerde | £2,000 | |
100 | Patrick Geeraets | £2,000 | |
100 | Wessel Nijman | £2,000 | |
103 | Adam Hunt | £1,500 | |
103 | Danny Lauby | £1,500 | |
103 | Oskar Lukasiak | £1,500 | |
103 | Radek Szagański | £1,500 | |
103 | Rhys Griffin | £1,500 | |
103 | Steve Lennon | £1,500 | |
103 | Dom Taylor | £1,500 | |
103 | Nathan Rafferty | £1,500 | |
111 | Brett Claydon | £1,000 | |
111 | Danny Jansen | £1,000 | |
111 | George Killington | £1,000 | |
111 | Joshua Richardson | £1,000 | |
111 | William Borland | £1,000 | |
111 | Benjamin Drue Reus | £1,000 | |
111 | Jules van Dongen | £1,000 | |
111 | Lukas Wenig | £1,000 | |
111 | Matthew Dennant | £1,000 | |
111 | Thibault Tricole | £1,000 | |
*Change since 3 January 2023. |
In addition to the main two-year Order of Merit, the PDC also operates secondary Orders of Merit for their different tours. These include the:
The PDC rankings from all orders of merit determine exemptions from the qualifying competitions and seedings for all televised events. Additionally, the orders of merit are used to offer tour cards for the following year.
Tournament | Qualifiers (seeds) | |||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
By Order of Merit | Other | |||||||
Main | PT | ET | PC | CT | DT | WS | ||
Ranked televised events | ||||||||
World Championship | 32 (32) | 32 | — | 2 | 2 | 2 | 26 | |
UK Open | TCH | — | 8 | 8 | — | 16 | ||
World Matchplay | 16 (16) | 16 | — | |||||
World Grand Prix | 16 (8) | 16 | — | |||||
European Championship | — | 32 (32) | — | |||||
Grand Slam of Darts | 0 (8) | — | 2 | 2 | 2 | 18 | ||
Players Championship Finals | — | 64 (64) | — | |||||
PDC Pro Tour | ||||||||
European Tour events | 16 | 16 (16) | — | 16 | ||||
Players Championship events | TCH | 0 (32) | — | |||||
Non-ranked televised events | ||||||||
The Masters | 24 (24) | — | ||||||
Premier League Darts | 4 | — | 4 | |||||
Champions League of Darts | 8 (8) | — | ||||||
Tour Cards | 64 | — | 2 | 2 | — | var |
The PDC holds a variety of ranked and unranked televised tournaments throughout the year. There are an additional selection of ranked floor and streamed tournaments that comprise the PDC Pro Tour, as well as unranked secondary tours and events such as the Challenge Tour, Development Tour, and event qualifiers. Money earned in all ranking events counts toward the Order of Merit, with none counting from the unranked events. [8]
Tournament | Prize money | |||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Total | Champion | Runner-up | Semi-finalists | Top 8 | Top 16 | Top 32 | Top 64 | Top 96 | Top 128 | |
Ranked televised events | ||||||||||
World Championship | £2,500,000 | £500,000 | £200,000 | £100,000 | £50,000 | £35,000 | £25,000 | £15,000 | £7,500 | — |
UK Open | £600,000 | £110,000 | £50,000 | £30,000 | £15,000 | £10,000 | £5,000 | £2,500 | £1,500 | £1,000 |
World Matchplay | £800,000 | £200,000 | £100,000 | £50,000 | £30,000 | £15,000 | £10,000 | — | ||
World Grand Prix | £600,000 | £120,000 | £60,000 | £40,000 | £25,000 | £15,000 | £7,500 | — | ||
European Championship | £600,000 | £120,000 | £60,000 | £40,000 | £25,000 | £15,000 | £7,500 | — | ||
Grand Slam of Darts [upper-alpha 1] | £650,000 | £150,000 | £70,000 | £50,000 | £25,000 | £12,250 | £5,000 [upper-alpha 2] | — | ||
Players Championship Finals | £600,000 | £120,000 | £60,000 | £30,000 | £20,000 | £10,000 | £6,500 | £3,000 | — | |
PDC Pro Tour [upper-alpha 3] | ||||||||||
13 European Tour events | £175,000 | £30,000 | £12,000 | £8,500 | £6,000 | £4,000 | £2,500 [upper-alpha 4] | £1,250 [upper-alpha 5] | — | |
30 Players Championship events | £100,000 | £12,000 | £8,000 | £4,000 | £3,000 | £2,000 | £1,250 | £750 | — | |
Total yearly ranking payouts | £11,625,000 | £2,070,000 | £996,000 | £1,141,000 | £1,432,000 | £1,822,000 | £2,208,000 | £1,636,000 | £288,000 | £32,000 |
Unranked Tournaments
The PDC operates additional unranked tournaments for tour card holders and occasional qualifiers throughout the year. This includes five televised premier invitational events comprising the Premier League, Champions League of Darts, World Series of Darts Finals, The Masters, and the World Cup of Darts pairs event. [10] [11] Although none of these events count toward the Order of Merit, they all award some number of tournament spots based on Order of Merit position. Additionally there are usually five to seven World Series of Darts events scheduled across the globe each year with eight top PDC players seeded over eight local qualifiers. [8]
Secondary Tours and Tournaments
The PDC also offers secondary tours that do not count toward the main Order of Merit, but do each include their own confined orders of merit. The Challenge Tour is open to any players who played at the most recent Q-School but failed to earn a tour card. Throughout the year, the top players on the Challenge Tour OoM are invited to fill openings on the Pro Tour, receive invitations to the World Championship and UK Open, and at the end of the year receive tour cards for the next two years. [8]
The Development Tour is open to players outside of the top 32 on the main Order of Merit who are between the ages of 16 and 23. Similarly to the Challenge Tour, the top players on the Development Tour order of merit receive tour cards and invitations to the UK Open and World Championship. Additionally, 96 players - comprising 16 invitations, tour card holders of the appropriate age, and Development Tour competitors - partake in the World Youth Championship. Although this championship does not count toward any order of merit, there is a £60,000 payout, and the finalists receive tour cards as well as berths in the Grand Slam and World Championship. [8]
Under the previous ranking points system, Colin Lloyd was the world number one player in the PDC for most of 2005 and 2006, despite most of the major titles being shared between Phil Taylor, Raymond van Barneveld and John Part. Although Lloyd also won two major titles, he often accumulated ranking points in the less prestigious non-televised events, in which Taylor did not always compete. Similarly, Alan Warriner was world number one on four occasions before ever winning his first and only PDC major, the 2001 Grand Prix, while Taylor won eight world championships and a host of other titles during that period.
13 players have held the position of World Number One since the World Darts Council started new rankings in 1993. Seven different players held the position in the old points system, and seven players have held the position since the PDC switched to the two-year earnings based Order of Merit system in 2007, with Phil Taylor being the only player to have been number one in both eras.
Player | # | Years in which player stood Number 1 |
---|---|---|
Phil Taylor | 13 |
|
Michael van Gerwen | 7 |
|
Alan Warriner | 6 |
|
Rod Harrington | 5 |
|
Colin Lloyd | 3 |
|
Dennis Priestley | 2 |
|
Peter Manley | 2 |
|
Gerwyn Price | 2 |
|
Raymond van Barneveld | 1 | 2008 |
John Part | 1 | 2003 |
Peter Wright | 1 | 2022 |
Michael Smith | 1 | 2023 |
Luke Humphries | 1 | 2024 |
Italic indicates the player was reigning world champion that year Bold indicates the player stood number one at the conclusion of that year's world championship |
Before January 2007 | Used old points system |
Current | Reigning number one on Order of Merit |
Following the World Darts Council (now PDC) split from the British Darts Organisation during 1992-94 the WDC drew up its first ranking list in the run-up to its inaugural 1994 World Championship. Mike Gregory and Chris Johns later went back to the BDO set up and Bobby George and many of the non-UK players never competed in the early days of the WDC.[ citation needed ]
Ranking | Player | Ranking | Player | |
---|---|---|---|---|
1 | Alan Warriner | 16 | Jann Hoffmann | |
2 | Rod Harrington | = | Chris Johns | |
3 | Phil Taylor | = | Roland Scholten | |
4 | John Lowe | 19 | Raymond van Barneveld | |
5 | Mike Gregory | = | Keith Deller | |
6 | Peter Evison | 21 | Bobby George | |
7 | Kevin Spiolek | 22 | Per Skau | |
= | Dennis Priestley | 23 | Bernd Hebecker | |
9 | Bob Anderson | = | Andree Welge | |
10 | Jocky Wilson | = | Pascal Rabau | |
11 | Jamie Harvey | 26 | Leo Laurens | |
12 | Eric Bristow | = | Bert Vlaardingerbroek | |
13 | Cliff Lazarenko | = | Tom Kirby | |
14 | Magnus Caris | = | Wayne Weening | |
= | Steve Beaton | = | Mauro Levy |
The PDC Pro Tour is a series of non-televised darts tournaments organised by the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC). They comprise Professional Dart Players Association (PDPA) Players Championships and European Tour events. Only four players have gone on to win at least 30 titles on the PDC Pro Tour. Michael van Gerwen has won the most Pro Tour titles winning 86. Phil Taylor is second on the list winning 70 events. Gary Anderson is in third winning 34 events and Peter Wright in fourth winning 33 events, as of October 2023.
The 2012 PDC Pro Tour was a series of non-televised darts tournaments organised by the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC). They were the Professional Dart Players Association (PDPA) Players Championships, the UK Open Qualifiers, and the new European Tour events. This year there were 33 PDC Pro Tour events – 20 Players Championships, 8 UK Open Qualifiers, and 5 European Tour events.
Andrew Gilding is an English professional darts player who plays in events of the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC). He made his television debut in 2011. He won his maiden televised title at the 2023 UK Open, and became the oldest man to win a major TV title in a debut PDC final appearance.
The 2013 PDC Pro Tour was a series of non-televised darts tournaments organised by the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC). They were the Professional Dart Players Association Players Championships, the UK Open Qualifiers, and the European Tour events. This year there were 32 PDC Pro Tour events – 16 Players Championships, 8 UK Open Qualifiers, and 8 European Tour events.
James Wilson is an English darts player who plays in events of the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC).
The 2014 PDC Pro Tour was a series of non-televised darts tournaments organised by the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC). Professional Dart Players Association Players Championships, UK Open Qualifiers, and European Tour events are the events that make up the Pro Tour. This year there were 34 PDC Pro Tour events held – 20 Players Championships, 6 UK Open Qualifiers, and 8 European Tour events.
The 2015 PDC Pro Tour was a series of non-televised darts tournaments organised by the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC). Professional Dart Players Association Players Championships, UK Open Qualifiers, and European Tour events were the events that made up the Pro Tour. This year there were 35 PDC Pro Tour events held – 20 Players Championships, six UK Open Qualifiers, and nine European Tour events.
The 2016 PDC Pro Tour was a series of non-televised darts tournaments organised by the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC). Players Championships, UK Open Qualifiers and European Tour events are the events that make up the Pro Tour. In 2016 there were 36 PDC Pro Tour events held – 20 Players Championships, six UK Open Qualifiers and ten European Tour events.
Danny Noppert is a Dutch professional darts player who plays in Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) events, where he is currently ranked No. 7 in the world. He is a former BDO World Darts Championship finalist, as well as being a Finder Darts Masters champion in 2017, before switching to the PDC in 2018, where he won the 2022 UK Open.
The 2018 PDC Pro Tour was a series of non-televised darts tournaments organised by the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC). Players Championships, UK Open Qualifiers and European Tour events are the events that make up the Pro Tour. In this year there are 41 PDC Pro Tour events being held – 22 Players Championships, six UK Open Qualifiers and 13 European Tour events.
The 2018 Dutch Darts Championship was the eleventh of thirteen PDC European Tour events on the 2018 PDC Pro Tour. The tournament took place at the MECC Maastricht, Maastricht, Netherlands from 7–9 September 2018. It featured a field of 48 players and £135,000 in prize money, with £25,000 going to the winner.
The 2020 PDC Pro Tour was a series of non-televised darts tournaments organised by the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC). Players Championships and European Tour events are the events that make up the Pro Tour. There were 27 PDC Pro Tour events held, 23 Players Championships and 4 European Tour events.
The 2020 German Darts Championship was a PDC European Tour event on the 2020 PDC Pro Tour. The tournament took place at Halle 39, Hildesheim, Germany. It featured a field of 48 players and £140,000 in prize money, with £25,000 going to the winner. It was the second event on the 2020 European Tour.
The 2022 Interwetten German Darts Championship was the second of thirteen PDC European Tour events on the 2022 PDC Pro Tour. The tournament took place at Halle 39, Hildesheim from 11 to 13 March 2022. It featured a field of 48 players and £140,000 in prize money, with £25,000 going to the winner.
The 2024 PDC Pro Tour is the current series of non-televised darts tournaments organised by the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC). Players Championships and European Tour events are the events that make up the Pro Tour. There will be thirty Players Championship events and thirteen PDC European Tour events, as well as 24 events for the Challenge and Development Tours, and the Women's Series.