"I’ve got nothing lose" - New year means new darts for world number one Luke Humphries

Luke Humphries has made an excellent start to the 2025 season. The 29-year-old Englishman recently took the title at the inaugural PDC Winmau World Masters by defeating Jonny Clayton 6-5 in the final, the seventh major title of his career. Humphries also took an assured win on Night One of the Premier League Darts.

A new year also immediately meant a fresh start for Humphries. "I’ve changed a lot of things about my game. I’ve got a newer set of darts, new footwear. Last year, being world champion, I wanted to keep everything the same," he explains in quotes collected by Oche180. “Now I’m not, I can experiment and try different things. I decided to make the changes two thirds of the way through last year but I didn’t want to change anything at an important moment. At the back end of the year, you don’t want to be making big changes. I waited until the year was over. I’ve got nothing lose.”

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“It’s not a different set of darts, just a newer version. I’d used the old ones for three years and they’d run their course a little bit," continues the world number one. "You lose that feel with them after a while so I needed a newer set. It won’t hinder me and I’ve played all right so far with them.”

Luke Humphries in action

There was a lot of buzz about this year's Premier League Darts selection, even more than normal. "Selfishly, I’m really happy with the line-up because I get on with most of them. I’m glad Chris Dobey and Nathan Aspinall are in it," Humphries assesses. “I know there’s a lot of talk about who’s in and who’s not in, but is there anyone [among the wildcard contenders], apart from Stephen Bunting, who was really good for 12 months? Probably not."

“I don’t think Nathan, Chris or Gezzy [Price] were amazing but no one around them shone either. The PDC has got to pick what they think is best, and that’s what they’ve done," Humphries concludes. “People moan about it at this time of year but once the competition starts, everyone forgets. It should be a really good Premier League.”

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