World champion Luke Humphries has a lofty goal to reach before stepping away from the oche.
Luke Humphries hopes he is not playing professional darts in 20 years’ time as the reigning world champion eyes an early retirement with 25 major titles in his back pocket. Humphries’ CV already boasts a number of huge accolades and the Berkshire-born competitor is still eight months shy of his 30th birthday.
Beating Luke Littler in the World Darts Championship final at Alexandra Palace in January fulfilled a lifelong dream for ‘Cool Hand’, as he joined an exclusive list of players to have clinched the biggest prize in darts and moved to the top of the PDC world rankings.
Humphries then showed that his Ally Pally exploits were no fluke by going all the way to the Premier League Darts final in London last month, where Littler took his revenge.
The 29-year-old still needs the Premier League and World Matchplay titles to complete the coveted ‘triple crown’, which was one of his first objectives in darts. But now, sitting top of the pile, Humphries has his sights set on a haul of 25 majors and four world titles before he turns 50.
That’s still quite an incredible amount of major titles to win, but I believe I could win 20 if I’m around for another 15 or 20 years.
For me, I hope I’m not playing darts professionally in 20 years because it’s a busy sport, you’re playing all the time. I’m thinking I’ll retire by 50 at the most, hopefully with three or four world titles. But it’s not easy to do.”
With the 17-week Premier League grind behind him, as well as taxing trips to America and Denmark, Humphries is skipping this week’s Pro Tour events. He also plans to miss two more Pro Tour meetings and the German Darts Championship later this summer in order to go on holiday.
From September onwards, however, ‘Cool Hand’ claims he wants to play in every event as he build up towards the defence of his world title at Ally Pally.
