As darts continues to become more popular throughout the world, there are many players that are becoming household names and faces.
Luke Littler has recently exploded onto the darts scene making a name for himself in quite literally every major tournament that he plays in resulting in either a win or a runners up position.
For a 16/17 year old to do that is quite simply amazing and a sign of the darting standard to come in future years.
HIs talent is clear but there have also been some incredibly talented dart players over the years, unlike Luke however, they’ve not been able to turn that talent into major accomplishments.
In this article we’re going to look at and rank the best darts player to never win a major.
5 Best Darts Player to Never Win a Major
5) Stephen Bunting
The fifth spot on this list had quite a lot of players to choose from.
Surprisingly, the top three on the list really should have won a major due to their career performances but someone who had the ability to perform better but has never really lived up to his potential is Stephen Bunting.
From 2012 – 2014 Bunting was a feared player in the BDO coming into his own and winning 4 titles including the BDO World Championship.
Unlike Raymond Van Barnevield – who went over the the PDC and won the PDC World Championship immediately and racked up 15 Major titles – Bunting could only ever make it to the quarter finals (twice) and semi finals (once).
Despite his clear ability, Bunting never won a PDC Major and only made it to one final in the Sydney Masters losing 3-11 to winner Phil Taylor.
These days however, Bunting has moved towards using his likable personality to become quite the unexpected TikTok star with over 100k followers and millions of likes at the time of writing this.
@bunting180 Psycho killer RUN RUN RUN AWAAAAAAAAAAY…..#fyp #thebulletstephenbunting #stephenbunting #darts
♬ Psycho Killer – Talking Heads
Unfortunately, making viral videos is unlikely to translate to Major wins!
^^ Guess I’m wrong on this one, if you want to win you best get making some of these videos 😅
Bunting (alongside Jelle Klaasen) may go down as the players that transitioned from the BDO with the most promise/potential but never saw it materialize in the PDC.
UPDATE – He’s only gone and done it!
I’ll have to find a new person to fill the 5th position on this list because Stephen Bunting is the winner of the PDC Cazoo Masters 2024.
In unbelievable timing, I made this article at the end of January 2024, only for it to be out of date one week later. I guess I was wrong, his TikTok fame obviously gave him the confidence needed to finally win that elusive PDC Major.
4) Martin Adams
One of, if not THE best BDO darts player of all time, Martin Adams is always thought of as a ‘what if’ player when it comes to PDC discussions.
Runner up to Raymond Van Barneveld in back to back Winmau World Masters, it’s clear that he could play with top tier players, however, where Raymond moved over to the PDC with great success, Adams never made the switch.
Many feel that the years of being a nearly man in the BDO impacted his confidence when it came to the biggest stage.
Yet, with 8 BDO Majors and 71 Open titles (yes 71!) In the UK and Europe, it’s hard to believe that he didn’t fancy himself as one of the best in the world.
Even recently, Adams averaged a 111.33 in a Modus Super Series game so you can never claim that he wouldn’t have been competitive in the PDC.
He also reportedly earned an estimated net worth of £9 million during his darting career.
This is a figure most players ranked outside of the top 16-32 in the PDC will likely never earn even with the substantial prize money available these days.
So, while people think he missed an opportunity financially, he’s shown how profitable it was to be the biggest fish in smaller seas.
Whatever his personal reasons are for not making the switch, he is definitely one of the best players to never win a major with the PDC (even if that’s technically because he never joined).
3) Mervyn King
Mervyn King was incredibly successful on the BDO circuit and was very close to achieving similar success with the PDC.
His major wins in other areas can’t be taken away from him or discounted (3 titles and 9 runner-up places) but when it comes to PDC majors, King just hasn’t been able to secure one.
Players moving over from the BDO to the PDC can always be a bit hit or miss when it comes to maintaining or raising their game for the PDC stage, however, King transitioned just fine and had been to 7 PDC Major Finals.
One of the most consistent players you’ll find over the last two decades, King has had several runners-up honors to his name.
This includes a Championship League loss to Phil Taylor in 2008 right through to The Masters loss to Jonny Clayton in 2021.
Getting to 7 finals is no small feat and shows the caliber of player that King was but he just couldn’t find a way past some of the more dominant players in Phil Taylor, Michael Van Gerwen, and to a lesser extent James Wade.
He also held 4th-5th positions in the PDC Order of Merit for a period of time showing his consistency and ranking performances but for whatever reason he couldn’t make the last hurdle in major competitions.
While still active, King isn’t qualifying for tournaments like he used to and with a side business away from darts, it’s unlikely we’ll ever see him back in peak form and competing at the highest level as the video below summarises.
2) Terry Jenkins
Terry Jenkins spent 12 years in the PDC and while his performance in the World Championship never caught anyones attention (one semi-final appearance was his highest placing), he was a remarkably consistent player on the rest of the PDC calendar.
Terry Jenkins has been ranked 3rd in the world rankings and has been to nine PDC Major Finals and has been runner-up in all of them.
His record is very similar to Mervyn King but his career ranking was one position higher and he’s been to 2 x more finals than King, however, what both have in common is that they never WON any of these finals.
It was hard to choose who should be 2nd or 3rd on this list because both Jenkins and King have had such a similar career so based on stats only, we’ll say Jenkins was the better player to never win a major.
While it was tough to decide on rankings between Jenkins and King, the best player to never win a major is one that I think very few people are going to debate…
1) Dave Chisnall
Fan and player favorite Dave Chisnall, aka Chizzy is arguably the best player to never win a PDC Major.
At the time of writing this, however, Chizzy is still ranked top 10 in the PDC Order of Merit and has time on his side to win a Major title (something that all darts fans would love to see) so his position topping this list is one that could eventually change.
We all know Chizzy is a talent. He has 22 non-televised PDC titles, 7 runner-up places, 5 Premier League appearances and has been inside the top 16 PDC Order of Merit for the last decade (with the majority of that time in the top 10).
Chizzy even made it to the final of the BDO World Championship so to have a current career accolade list of 7 x runner-up places in major finals feels unfortunate for someone of his ability.
He also has 2 x PDC world series finals runners-up places so I don’t know what he needs to do to get over the line.
For a player that good and consistent, no-one can work out who he doesn’t have a Majors title yet!
Paul Nicheoson commented that he thinks Chizzy is actually “too nice” and that a lack of grit or nastiness is preventing him from crossing over the finish line.
You see prolific winners like Gary Anderson, Peter Wright, MVG, Gerwyn Price, Adrian Lewis, and of course Phil Taylor get heated in big games and this is something we never see from Chizzy so Nicholson could be onto something with his comments?
We don’t want him to lose what makes everyone love him but if Chizzy gets more of a ‘him vs everyone’ attitude could that be the adjustment he needs to make to finally see him take home a big one?
Honorable Mentions
There are actually some players like John Lowe and Eric Bristow who never won a PDC Major but they played in the very early days of the PDC/BDO split and at that time, there were not the number of tournaments like today.
Lowe and Bristow were coming to the end of their careers after dominating throughout the 80’s and this was just as Phil Taylor was coming into his peak years so winning the World Championship over the likes of him or Dennis Priestley at that stage was just unrealistic.
What Next
This was an interesting list to rank and we’ve put together two more, check them out and see if you agree with our choices:
Also, do you agree with our selections in this article? If you think there’s a better player we’ve missed then let us know below 👇👇👇