Bobby George once said: “trebles for show, doubles for dough”.
Wise words.
Though the only issue with it is that as darts fans, we’re obsessed with 180’s.
Go in any Facebook group or Reddit thread and you’ll be bombarded with ‘my first 180’ posts. When it comes to watching matches as well we love to see 180’s flying in.
There’s just something about.
Therefore, we’re going to take a look at the players who’ve scored the most 180’s in a year to rank the best 180 hitters in the game.
SEE MORE LISTS ON DECENT DARTS
👉 11 highest earning darts players [RANKED]
👉 9 WEIRDEST darts matches of all time
Darts Players with the Most 180’s In a Year
9. Peter Wright (2020) – 597
Fresh from winning the 2020 World Darts Championship, Wright would maintain the form of a World Champion by winning the European Championship, The Masters and having some deep tournament runs in other majors.
As a result, he became only the third player at the time (after Taylor and MVG) to earn £1,000,000 in a year on the PDC Order of Merit.
On route to a year that had both title and financial success, Wright displayed some power scoring that would make him difficult to compete with when on form.
He did have an up and down season. After failing to get out of the group stage at the Grand Slam of Darts he said: “When I lost to Devon I could have walked away from the sport quite easily.”
Despite that, he crashed in 597 x 180’s across the campaign putting him inside the top 10 for most 180’s in a year.
8. Dave Chisnall (2022) – 598
Chizzy is one of the most consistent performers in darts and many players often point out how much darting ability he has.
He’s a clear crowd favourite and accomplished player with dozens of titles on the Pro Tour. The issue with Chizzy though is that he’s a bit of a ‘nearly man’.
He’s been to several PDC major finals but finished runner-up in all of them. His most recent came in 2022 at The Masters where he would lose 11-9 to Joe Cullen in the final.
That year he would win the Belgian Darts Open and a Players Championship title so it was a successful campaign and his 598 maximums were evident of his form.
RELATED:
👉 5 best players to never win a PDC major
👉 6 players we think HAVE to win a major soon
7. Michael van Gerwen (2018) – 622
Michael van Gerwen appears on this list a few times (though not as many as you might think), as a result of a period of complete darting dominance during the mid to late 2010’s.
2018 was one of his least successful years going back as far as 2013.
His only ranked major title was the World Grand Prix, however, he won several non-ranked majors including the Premier League, The Masters and the World Cup of Darts.
It’s surprising he wasn’t more successful that year because it was a power scoring year where he’d registered 622 x 180’s.
When looking closer, he’d won 8 of the 13 Euro Tour events and only entered 11 so it was away from the big tournaments the MVG was really dominating that year.
6. Luke Humphries (2023) – 634
2023 would be the start of a period of dominance for a new player.
After winning the 2013 World Grand Prix, Luke Humphries would go on to dominate most major tournaments over the following 12 months.
His wins included:
- World Grand Prix
- Grand Slam of Darts
- Players Championship Finals
- World Darts Championship
- World Matchplay
- World Cup of Darts
It’s been a run we’ve not seen someone do besides Phil Taylor and MVG.
His 634 x 180’s will have contributed to this fantastic run whilst also acting as an early warning sign of what was to come from Cool Hand 👀
5. Michael van Gerwen (2016) – 639
This was one of the best years an individual has had outside of Phil Taylor.
MVG won every major except the World Championship.
Technically the 2017 championship fell into the New Year but he won that championship off the back of winning everything else throughout the 2016 calendar year.
He also made it to the final of every non-ranked major, winning the majority of them.
He also won 6/10 events on the European tour. He only entered 9 though so actually he won 66.6% of those events.
It was an unreal period of dominance and 639 x 180’s in 2016 was years ahead of the scoring standard.
Just look at his Wikipedia snapshot for tournaments he played that year:
4. Gian van Veen (2023) – 650
Luke Humphries had a power scoring run in 2023 but he wasn’t the heaviest scorer when it came to 180’s hit.
The young Dutch star, Gian van Veen would put the darting world on note as the 2023 World Youth Championship runner-up (losing to a bigger youth star Luke Littler) would reach the European Championship semi-finals aged just 21.
This was before Littler would make 21 look old…
With 650 x 180’s registered in 2023, ‘The Giant’ is giving us a look at what is to come.
Littler is taking the limelight at the moment but when putting up these kind of numbers it might be just a matter of time before we start seeing Gian van Veen picking up some of the big titles.
3. Luke Littler (2024) – 661*
Luke Littler is having the best debut season of any darts player and probably most sportsmen in history.
At 16 years of age he went on a historic run to the World Championship finals and since then he has not slowed down.
He won his first title a month later at the Bahrain Darts Masters, then would finish top of the Premier League table before winning the Premier League Finals and currently has the most titles of any player in 2024 with 9.
On this run, he has been absolutely crashing in 180’s with frightening regularity. He has a European Tour record now with 31 x 180’s hit at ET9 breaking his own record of 30 x 180s set in March of this year.
With the World Grand Prix starting this week, Littler can already start to make a big push towards first place on this list and if he can have a deep tournament run, it’s likely he’ll move to second with a sizable chunk of tournaments still to come!
It’s hardly going out on a limb to say this but it’s highly likely Luke Littler will set the record this year for the most 180’s hit.
At 17 years of age, who knows how many times he can then look to break his own record in years to come…
MORE LUKE LITTLER ON DECENT DARTS
👉 Darts fans ANNOYED by inappropriate Luke Littler question
👉 “That’s what happens when it’s me” – Luke Littler on the headlines when he loses
2. Peter Wright (2019) – 682
Appearing for the second time on this list, Snakebite would have consecutive years where he was the biggest 180 hitter in darts.
His 2019 haul of 682 maximums would be a sign of what was to come as Wright would go on to win the 2020 World Darts Championship.
Throughout 2019, Wright won the German Darts Masters, World Cup of Darts and was runner-up in a few majors but nothing to indicate what was to come from the Scotsman.
Perhaps the number of 180’s he hit were therefore the bigger underlying sign 🤔
1. Michael Smith (2022) – 714
Everyone knows Bully Boy is one of the heaviest scorers in the game so it shouldn’t be the biggest surprise to him topping this list.
Though we’re surprised he’s only had a single season that’s top 10 worthy!
It’s been a theme on this list that players who have had a very heavy 180 hitting campaign have gone on to win their first PDC World Championship.
Wright, Humprhies and Smith all share this trend.
During the 2022 campaign Smith would win his first major title, the Grand Slam of Darts, and until then he had been a runner-up in no less than 8 PDC major tournaments.
He would have been sharing a similar title to Chizzy as a ‘nearly man’ but the Grand Slam of Darts win, combined with the staggering number of 180’s he hit at 714, would be the catalyst for him to go on and win the 2023 World Darts Championship.
As mentioned though, Littler is hot on his heels and it’s very likely that the next time we update this list, Smith will be sitting in 2nd place…
See also – 5 best Michael Smith moments in darts
180’s don’t guarantee you wins but as you’ve seen from this list, heavy scoring players do on average tend to a lot of titles when it comes to darts.
With the likes of Luke Littler and Gian van Veen both inside the top 5 and very young in age, the future of scoring is looking to be very heavy when it comes to darts!
Note – There are more tournaments and better data capture in more recent years so this list is heavily favoured towards players from the last decade.
Data sourced from Darts Orakel – Correct as of 07/10/2024
➡️ Read next: 11 SMOOTHEST darts throws (perfect technique)