Darts legend Phil Taylor has offered to move in with Luke Littler, Britain’s most promising teenage prodigy, to help him reach new heights in his career.
Taylor, now 64 and a winner of an incredible 16 world titles, is unlikely to compete again following hip replacement surgery and a high-tech laser operation on his eye.
He claims he has been given the opportunity to mentor ‘Luke the Nuke’, suggesting that Littler could earn so much from darts that he could retire by the age of 25. However, Taylor insists his mentoring would come with strict rules akin to those of a boarding school housemaster.
Littler, who made nearly £1million in prize money alone after his dream run to the PDC World Championship final at just 16 years old last January, has had his management team contact Taylor for advice to keep him at the top.
Speaking on talkSPORT, Taylor said: “With young Luke, they have asked me if I would sit down with him and I said, ‘Of course, I will.’ But I would have to go and live with him for a few days, see what he is all about.
“If I spent time with him, I would see how he practises, see how he eats and exercises, how he does anything. If he’s playing on one of those PlayStations, I would give him a set time – maybe an hour a night or something – and then get ready for the next day.”
Darts legend Phil Taylor has offered sage advice to youngsters urging them, “Make sure you aren’t staying up too late and waking up in the morning and you are shattered. I have seen that so many times players who will have a drink afterwards, they get into the drinking and then they aren’t getting to bed until 1am or 2am.”
Following a heart-stopping 7-4 loss to Luke Humphries in an unforgettable World Championship final at Ally Pally nine months earlier, Littler went on to claim victory in the Premier League – darts’ second wealthiest prize – along with triumphs in Bahrain, Austria, Belgium, and Poland.
Meanwhile, Taylor has bowed out of next month’s World Seniors Masters in Sunderland, which was slated as his swansong competitive event. Conceding to time’s toll he disclosed: “I’m retired now. Properly retired. I will do a little bit of personal appearances, some meet-and-greets, signing autographs, that sort of thing. But my eyes started going a few years ago, so I had a lens replacement. Then my hips went.”
He confided a wistful lament: “In my mind, I am still 18. But my body is about 90 and that’s the problem.”
