Phil Taylor opens up on what he did with his prize money after winning first BDO darts tournament

Darts legend Phil Taylor has revealed what he did with the prize money from his first professional tournament win.

Back in the late 80's, a fresh-faced Taylor was asked to play for Eric Bristow's pub team, The Crafty Cockney, after he impressed the former world champion.

Bristow would later loan the up-and-coming talent around £10,000 to fund his development, paying for air flights, hotels and entry fees for trips to America, Canada, Finland, Denmark and France.

Unsurprisingly, Burslem-born Taylor made his mark on the professional scene soon after, defeating Bob Anderson in the final of the 1988 Canadian Open, where he scooped a sum of around £4,000.

"If it wasn't for him [Bristow] I wouldn't be here now because I hadn't got any money," Taylor told The Standard in 2012.

So what did he do with the prize money from that victory in 1988?

Speaking in the new documentary Dart Kings on Sky, the 16-time world champion said he gave most of it to mentor Bristow as he'd paid for him to enter the tournament.

Two years later, an unseeded 125/1 outsider going by the name of Phil Taylor defeated Bristow in the 1990 BDO World Darts Championship final to secure his first world title.

The rest, as they say, is history. Taylor went on to establish himself as arguably the greatest of all time, lifting 214 professional titles. In fact, 'The Power' won a record 85 major titles during his trophy-laden career.

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Taylor opened up on his admiration for Bristow in 2018, shortly after Bristow died following a heart attack while attending a Premier League Darts event in Liverpool.

"Eric was like a brother to me - I loved him. Quite simply I owe him everything," Taylor told the PDC. "I wouldn't have achieved what I did without him being a mentor and sponsoring me in the early days. I couldn't afford to go to Rhyl let alone Canada or Las Vegas to play darts.

"Probably his biggest influence on me was the winning mentality. Like my mum and dad, he was very strict with me, he didn't want to talk to me unless I'd won an event.

"I would ring him up and say I'd made the semi-final or lost the final and he'd shout at me 'Only ring me when you've won' and slam the phone down. But that gave me the drive and hunger to succeed and I needed that at the time."

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Taylor added: "That mentality is his legacy, he started it, made me like it and now the standard will continue to go up because of him."