Luke Littler forced darts rule change aged just 12 due to prodigious talent

Luke Littler's first coach has revealed how ruled needed to be changed to allow the darts star to take to the stage at tournaments when he was just 12 years old.. Littler became the youngest ever PDC World Champion when he beat Michael van Gerwen in the 2025 final at the age of 17, just 12 months on from losing to Luke Humphries in the Ally Pally showpiece. He was only nine when coach Karl Holden first encountered him, though, and Holden saw the youngster's quality long before his tour debut.

The Warrington pro won his first title aged just 14, beating Barry Copeland in the final of the Irish Open. He took part in his first WDF World Championship in 2022, at the age of 15, and became the youngest ever player to win a match in the competition. Littler's rise started even earlier than that, though. He competed in BDO and WDF events before making his PDC debut, with the first of those coming as a 12-year-old - something which Holden admits threatened to cause problems.

"When I first met him when he was age nine, Luke and his brother turned up for the darts academy," Holden told BBC Sport. "Somebody said he's quite good in the beginners' group, and I watched him and I was like 'blimey'. "Within three months he was playing in the under-21s on the stage, which caused us a problem because we weren't allowed on the stage unless you were over 14, but we had to change the rules just for him. We started pushing him to other forms of darts like county darts and things like that, just trying to encourage him to play against the men because he was just too good for the boys.".

"He's still doing the little checkouts that nobody else ever did in the past. He's always loved to do something a bit different and show what he can do, you know, and you need to be clever to do that and have the ability, and he's lucky that he's got all them.". How many more titles will Luke Littler win this year? Have your say in the comments section. After winning a number of youth titles, including the PDC World Youth Championship in 2023, Littler made his senior World Championship debut and made it all the way to the final. That was the start of a breakout year for the teenager, who was crowned Premier League Darts champion on his first appearance in the competition.

Since winning the worlds in January, he has reached the semi-finals of the Dutch Darts Masters and the quarter-final of the World Masters. He cruised through the early rounds in the latter, only to come unstuck against eventual finalist Jonny Clayton. Next up for The Nuke is the first week of Premier League action as he sets out to defend his title. Van Gerwen awaits in the first round in Belfast, and the Dutchman has sent an early message to his opponent.