Lionel Messi had scored one senior goal for Barcelona. Sachin Tendulkar had scored one Test century. Tiger Woods had played four tournaments on the PGA Tour and missed the cut in all of them. Ronnie O’Sullivan and Serena Williams had just won their first major titles. Simone Biles, though already richly garlanded at international level, was still waiting to compete in her first Olympics.
These were just the other child prodigies. What had you achieved by the age of 18? How many of your dreams and aspirations had been conceived, let alone realised? How much of the course of your life had been mapped out for you? At the age of 18, your correspondent had no idea what he wanted to do with his life and at the age of 39 arguably still doesn’t.
I suppose on a deeper level what we all crave at that age is meaning and direction, the acceptance and love of others, thrills and experiences, and in this respect, too, Luke Littler stands alone. That, as he turns 18, he has already won three of the four biggest prizes in darts – the world championship, the Premier League and the Grand Slam – is shocking enough. That he is already the ninth-most decorated player in the history of the Professional Darts Corporation is shocking enough.
But perhaps more impressive still is the way this teenager has navigated being a teenager: a phase most of us are still finding the size and shape of what matters, still learning and erring, still navigating without maps. Still struggling to define happiness, let alone find our way towards it. Littler, through a lot of talent and a lot of character and above all a single-minded sense of purpose, is there at the summit before all of us: a world of opportunity and potential stretching luxuriantly out before him, a guy who has already pretty much completed life.
And there are still goals and peaks to conquer. The World Matchplay in July is the biggest prize yet to come into his possession. A first tilt at the World Masters next week, a first World Cup this summer. On the current trajectory, Luke Humphries should comfortably be overhauled as world No 1 at some point this year. Littler is learning to drive and wants a Mercedes as his first runabout. Then the long slow process of accumulation: an inexorable numbers game of legacy-building and silverware and clout and cold hard cash.
In the short term, however, turning 18 changes deceptively little. Any changes are likely to be felt away from the oche: the emerging responsibility of bills and administration, perhaps a little more aggression and attention from rivals. Then there is the world outside, the Littler-industrial complex of brands and broadcasters and people who will feel entitled to a piece of his time over the coming years and who will no longer be fettered by the fact that the target of their pursuit is still technically a child.
At one point last year, there was some talk from his team of a 2025 media blackout: a focus on darts and darts and darts and nothing else beyond that. Inevitably, it is a stance that has already softened a little. But the instincts feel right: the sense this is a talent that will still need to be nurtured and protected as much as possible, helped in the transition from mildly abnormal childhood to deeply abnormal adulthood.
After all, Littler was a child of the pandemic: perfecting his craft behind closed doors, a life lived predominantly online, a route to the top he may have pioneered but others will assuredly follow. The stars of the future will emerge not from the pubs and clubs Littler can now legally patronise, but from the bedrooms and the internet, where you can go on DartCounter and play anyone you want, whenever you want. Littler was the first to emerge from this new world order. But he won’t be the last.
Nevertheless, his rise will not have passed unnoticed. In the same way Woods inspired parents around the world to pursue golf as a fun, concussion-free route to untold riches, Littler’s path to glory will open up new avenues and markets to the sport. A few weeks ago, Littler was on the Alexandra Palace stage to present the Junior Darts Corporation world championship trophy to 13-year-old Lex Paeshuyse, who, despite barely looking big enough to reach the board, averaged more than Littler did in winning his first world title.
Equally, the next great champion could as easily come from China or the Philippines or the Caribbean. When people in darts talk of the way Littler has changed the sport, this is the sort of tectonic shift they’re talking about.
For all this, nothing will ever quite recreate the thrill of those first 13 months when a child grabbed darts by the lapels and put it on the coat-hooks. Who went on a journey and took us all along with him. Who somehow managed to look utterly invincible and utterly fragile all at once, the kid who looked like a man who looked a child.
Will he eventually become too dominant? Will he eventually be beaten? Will audiences tire of Littler-saturation? For the time being these are questions that can wait, safely palmed off into a future that for now remains gloriously, pristinely unwritten.
