Luke Littler: Target Darts explains the science behind the phenomenal success of the world’s No.1 Darts News

Want to know the secret to darting phenom Luke Littler’s success?

Littler has led darts’ rise to the mainstream since breaking onto the scene at the age of 16 with his debut run in the 2024 World Championship final.

Darts manufacturer Target Darts has supported the global superstar since the age of 12. In February 2024, Kishore Signed a multi-year mega-deal worth up to £20 million – The game is the most profitable ever.

Littler has a generational talent when it comes to playing darts and Sky Sports pundit Wayne Mardell said “he’s probably the most naturally gifted player I’ve ever seen”.

From the moment the Warrington-born star first held a dart, he became a record-breaker and history-maker.

Target Darts CEO James Tattersall said both the company and Littler are “aligned” with where they want to see the future of darts.

Speaking at an event where Target set out a vision to inspire 100 million people to play darts by the end of the decade, he explained how Little sat down with chairman Gary Plummer, the design team and engineers to perfect his game in the process of creating darts.

“I think some of the inspiration was taken from Adrian Lewis’ Darts and the Pixel grip, which is a unique grip from Target and that worked its way into the look of the original G1,” said Tattersall. “It was the barrel, but over the years Luke tweaked it and challenged us to improve it. The point length changed, the shaft and flight changed to the K-Flex system before his first world championship.”

The F-Flex is a one-piece flight and shaft innovation that screws into the back of the barrel.

Tattersall explains: “What this helps you do is when you’re throwing darts together in tight groupings like Luke, what you want to avoid is that the dart is already on the board and deflects the dart, and the K-Flex helps reduce these deflections considerably.

“And the long points—it’s like the balance of the dart and how it flies and how it lands through the air. I think another part of it is it puts the barrel part of the dart further away from the treble and it creates more space on the board.”

Talent vs. Tools?

“His talent is all about him,” Tattersall said “I think when you’re talking about tools, we’re talking about getting Luke comfortable with all that talent and giving him the right tools that he’s confident to use and just get those last few percent, but Luke’s a tremendous player regardless.”

With two world titles in three visits to Alexandra Palace and 14 major titles to his name, Littler is on course to join Phil Taylor as a legend of the game.

The problem for his rivals is that he is still getting better After the Warrington star crushed Garwin Price 18-9 to retain his Betfred World Matchplay title Blackpool on Sunday.

Littler was in fine form as he set a new record for the final with an average of 111.53, breaking Phil Taylor’s previous high mark of 106.31 and taking his average for the tournament to 111.04.

The victory puts Littler on course for a clean sweep of the World Championship, UK Open, Premier League and Masters trophies in 2026.

Supporting cast behind Littler

Littler’s management has invested in sports psychologists, nutritionists, performance coaches and biomechanics to get the most out of their talents, and Kishore has benefited from each area to support his game.

“Attitude is absolutely key. We want to protect the players. The stage is lonely out there, and darts is a scary game,” Tattersall said.

“It’s like a penalty shootout, but every time you’re throwing a dart. It’s such a closed skill, and it’s very repetitive. Your mentality has to be really, really clear, and you get those big momentum swings, you think you’re going to double checkout, you miss by a millimeter, a big 7 on your opponent’s throw and checkout. In the stomach it’s how you recover from the psychology of that game, and I don’t know why. Shouldn’t be on Dart.

‘We want to learn about action – not build robots’

With biomechanics, cameras monitor how a player throws darts, helping sports science data work on technique to improve.

The goals are ideas but Tattersall insists their implementation will not turn the Luke Littlers of this world into robots.

“That’s the last thing we want to do,” he said. “What we want to do is discover and learn about the game and learn about that action, because why are there different throwing techniques?

“If you look at something like golf, where you know you suddenly come up with the Verdon grip (or overlapping grip), and that becomes the only way to hold the golf club.

“I think the high jump has got a really famous example of how sport, science, innovation, (the Fosbury flop), you end up with a strategic point like that.

“I think there’s going to be different ways to throw darts, and different ways to improve those different styles, and maybe that particular style because you’re tall, and maybe that particular style because you’ve got long arms, we don’t know yet, but that’s what we’re going to find out, and then use the data accordingly.”

Joe Burton, chief transformation officer at Target Darts, said Littler is already inspiring the next generation with his natural talent, although the company is slowly moving toward a performance technology system, which is currently being tested on several players.

“If you look at a young person and you think about their journey in a sport, you need an inspirational player – someone they want to look up to – and can aspire to be around. Luke Littler provides that,” Bouton said.

“You need a natural talent, but that only gets you so far. Then it’s determination and I think psychology too.

“What makes a star player a great and world-class player is actually the ability to focus under pressure and make those doubles. It’s never going to be robotic.”

Who will win this year’s BoyleSports World Grand Prix? World No.1 Luke Littler will defend his title and you can watch all the action on Sky Sports. Stream darts and more great games now.