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Topics: Darts, Luke Littler
Jack Kenmare
A 14-year-old labelled the future of Scottish darts has emulated Luke Littler once again by hitting a nine-darter on the amateur scene.
Mitchell Lawrie, from Renfrew in Scotland, is one of the most talked-about young players in the game right now, and for good reason.
Last month, Lawrie clinched his first senior World Darts Federation title at the Welsh Open, beating an experienced Darren Johnson 6–1 to claim the title.
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His emphatic win over Johnson meant that he matched Luke Littler's achievement of winning his first senior title at the age of 14.
A sign of things to come? It appears so. Less than a month after becoming the youngest Welsh Open champion and Lawrie went one better by lifting the British Open.
The 14-year-old beat fellow Scot Ryan Hogarth 5-0 in the final, throwing 3 180s and averaging 102.95 to secure a memorable victory.
This week, Lawrie hit headlines again as the Renfrew High School pupil hit a nine-darter at an ADC vault amateur event at The County in Cambuslang, Glasgow.
Littler is the youngest player to hit a recorded nine-darter, having achieved the feat in 2021 at 14, and now the youngster has matched that record after hitting 174, 180 and 147.
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Speaking to STV News last month, Lawrie said his ambition is to become a world champion like his hero, Gary Anderson.
He also opened up on how he got into the sport.
“I started playing a lot during lockdown in a Monday night online league, and that’s when I started playing a lot, maybe six or seven hours a day, because there wasn’t much else to do in lockdown," he said.
“Then I stopped for a bit, but when we moved house, I started playing again, and that’s when I realised how good I was, and I started doing it competitively."
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Lawrie added: “I usually practise for around two to two and a half hours a day, and sometimes it can be more but that is the routine that I stick to.”
Like fellow teenager Littler, the talented Lawrie started playing early on. “He was probably around two or three," his mum, Lynn, told STV News.
"My dad was big on darts, and I can remember my dad lifting him out of his pram and holding him up so he could play at the dart board, so we bought him his own dart board, then we thought ‘ok let’s get him a real dart board and see where it goes from there’.
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She added: “He would just throw away at it, and keep throwing away, and throwing away, and then from there it was every year when the Scottish Open came.”