"Damian Mol didn't even know he was participating in a qualifying tournament" - Hilarious story of Dutch darter

Through the so-called 'Host Nation' qualifying tournament, Damian Mol managed to qualify for the Dutch Darts Championship last week. Although there is a funny story attached to that.

At the 'Host Nation' qualifying tournament, which was played a day before the start of the Dutch Darts Championship, there were still four places to earn for the tournament in the Autotron Rosmalen. Mol grabbed one of them, so there were twelve Dutch players at the European Tour tournament, a record.

"I asked Damian last week if he would participate in the qualifying tournament so that I could possibly be on his guest list and thus follow the tournament on the ground," says journalist Damian Vlottes in the podcast Double Top. "Damian messaged me back that he didn't know it was a qualifying tournament for the Dutch Darts Championship, he thought it was a regular tournament. He then qualified only to eventually lose 6-5 to Andrew Gilding in the opening round of the main tournament."

Fellow darter Jerry Hendriks did not stop laughing when hearing this story. "This is hilarious," he said. "But maybe it was also just the success factor he needed. After all, he went to that tournament with no expectations and then sometimes you get the best results."

"By the way, Damian has proven before that he has the level to compete in the PDC. He lost his Tour Card particularly narrowly at the end of last year and recaptured it almost immediately. He's been a bit unlucky, but I definitely see him returning to the PDC in the future.

Is such a relaxed attitude good for a darter or should Mol consider training harder to achieve even greater success? "I find that quite difficult," says Hendriks. "Especially if you're not a full-time professional and possibly still have a family, it's definitely not obvious to train a lot. My buddy Patrick Geeraets also has a Tour Card since this year, but with a job and a family on top of that you don't get to train very often."