"If I’d carried on the way I was going, I wouldn’t be here now" - Steve West back to loving darts after suffering from immense pressure on PDC Tour

Steve West was a regular on the PDC Tour, sitting in the top 40 for a number of years before his demise led him to lose his Tour Card in 2022. He spoke on life as a professional darter while unearthing a dark period as he struggled on the oche.

Now regularly playing on the MODUS Super Series, he was really happy there with a lot of positive memories." I would say this is probably the only place in the last 10 to 15 years that I’ve actually felt happy and comfortable playing," he began.

He explained why. "It’s the pressure, isn’t it? When I was on the tour, you’re constantly under pressure because if you don’t win, you can’t pay your bills and all that. But coming here, it’s more relaxed — the atmosphere, everything around it. It’s all just relaxed and nice and easy to play."

West has settled down after moving to the south coast from Essex. "People say, 'Well, Steve’s moving down to Portsmouth because of darts' but there’s nothing to do with that. We’ve got personal lives, you know? For a change of pace in life, this is the place to be. For me, for my wife and for the dog and everything, it’s just perfect for us. So that’s why we moved down here. Now we’re just going to settle into this sort of chilled life."

West reminisced on the start of his time competing in the Super Series. "I thought it was strange actually, walking into a church thinking, 'I’m going to play darts in here,'" he said. "Then I walked inside and saw the setup and it was like, 'Well, you can’t play in more perfect conditions than this.' It’s changed a lot since those days and it’s only changed for the better. I enjoy every single time I throw here."

He remembered the first setup they had. "It was wide open here back then. It’s all closed in now and a little bit more professional than it was. It was great then, but it’s a lot more professional now and a bit more comfortable for you guys as well."

He got in the winning mood early on, something that he did not expect. "No. I just came in hoping to play well and get used to the place. It turned out I did a really good job, but mainly it was about being here, playing, and feeling my way around. It was interesting. Good fun."

After leaving the building after that first week as the winner, West was a relieved man. The pressure for financial security was not as high. "Life on tour can be demoralising," he admitted. "You walk out of a building after being under pressure for four or five days, not having won a penny, and not being able to pay your bills. But here, you know you’re going to get something out of it, so it relaxes you a little bit and lets you just get on with playing darts."

A lot of work goes onto becoming a professional darts player. However, sometimes it is all in vain. "Exactly. You might spend two or three weeks preparing for a ProTour, do everything right, play well, and still lose because someone else has a big game. Then you’ve not only not earned money for that event, you’ve effectively lost six weeks because you now have to prepare all over again for the next one.

"That’s the problem with going tournament to tournament on the tour. Here, at least things are covered. At the PDC you’ve got travel costs, hotels, food, drinks — everything. You can average 104 in the first round and lose and suddenly you can’t pay your phone bill. It’s pressure. A lot of pressure. Honestly, I’m glad to be away from it."

West had a Tour Card from 2012-2022. He reached a Players Championship final, three major quarter-finals and a trio of Euro Tour semi-finals, highlighting a respectable 10-year stint on the PDC Tour.

In the end, it was not a satisfying conclusion. "I want to be totally honest — if I’d carried on the way I was going, I wouldn’t be here now," he said. "It was really dark. Obviously I met Michelle and things started to look up. She helped me out of a really dark space. Falling off the tour was probably one of the best things that happened to me mentally and for my health. When I look at it now, I think I’ve still got something to give, but do I want to go back to that place? I don’t think I do."

The financial aspect was another torrid thing on his mind. "I’d do it tomorrow if I had money behind me and no worries at all. But I don’t want to go back into it with the stress of not earning. They’ve increased the prize money over the last few years — from £500 to £750 and then £1,000 — but really they should’ve added money for first-round losers. Give first-round losers £250 and the winners £500. Then you’re actually a professional darts player. Until you get paid for it, you’re not really a pro."

He believed that it was unnecessary pressure on players. "A professional footballer gets paid every week whether they win or lose. A boxer gets paid for taking the fight. Snooker players are in the same boat as us — if you don’t win, you get nothing. If you’re professional, you should be getting paid for what you’re doing."

As forementioned, there was a lot of really good memories from his time on the PDC circuit. He named his most treasured achievement: "Obviously beating Phil Taylor in 2016 — that’s right up there," he stated.

"Before the tournament started, Phil called me over after a ProTour event and said, 'Come and sit down, we’ll have a chat.' He started telling me how much money he’d got, how many houses he had, this, that and the other. I said, 'Phil, really? I’m not bothered what you’ve got.' I told him, 'Monday, one of two things happens. Either I lose — which changes nothing because everyone expects me to lose — or I win and it makes my career.' Monday came and that was that. Brilliant."

He spoke on some other significant moments. "But going back even further, the 2007 Dutch Open final was massive for me. There were 4,500 entries and I lost the final to Scott Waites, but it was one of the biggest stepping stones in my career. From that point I just grew and grew. Then there’s beating Michael van Gerwen on TV in the European Championship and other TV events. Michael was in his pomp then, so to beat the best player on the planet — yeah, I’m very happy with that."

Between 2016 and 2020, West did not finish lower than 45th in the rankings. This consistency was very crucial as West reset his targets after gettig his Tour Card. "I think everyone who starts on tour has that dream of becoming world champion, but realistically very few people ever do it," he commented.

"For a lot of players, the dream is simply to become a professional darts player. That certainly was for me. At school, when people asked what I wanted to do, I’d say, 'I want to be a professional darts player.' But once you get a Tour Card, you need to reset your goals. Some people become content once they hit that target. Others — like Michael Smith — always believed they’d become world champion and kept striving for it.

"To a lot of people, getting a Tour Card is the be-all and end-all. For me, it actually became a restriction. Once you’ve got your Tour Card, you can’t play in lots of streamed open events anymore. You’re restricted in what you can do."

Overall, he felt like he did not live up to his potential in his career. "I think I massively underachieved in my career. The closest I got was a ProTour final against Michael van Gerwen. It was 5-5, I was sat on 110, he hit something huge to leave a finish and I hit a big five. Those moments stick with you forever. I’ve had a couple of semi-finals on the Euro Tour and things like that, but I always wanted to be just a little bit better."