Only the second ever! Luke Woodhouse joins rare Euro Tour list after bizarre Baltic Sea Darts Open title twist

Luke Woodhouse’s first European Tour title already had a spectacular finish. Now it also has one of the strangest statistical footnotes of the 2026 season.

The Englishman beat Ryan Joyce 8-4 in Sunday night’s Baltic Sea Darts Open final in Kiel, sealing the biggest European Tour win of his career with a brilliant 160 checkout. It completed a superb weekend for Woodhouse, who averaged 98.61 in the final and added a Euro Tour crown to his recent Players Championship breakthrough.

According to Weekly Dartscast, Woodhouse also became only the second player to win a European Tour title without beating a seeded opponent during the tournament. The only previous example listed was Joe Cullen at the 2022 Hungarian Darts Trophy.

There is an added twist. Woodhouse was himself seeded by the time the Baltic Sea Darts Open was played, entering the event as 14th seed after withdrawals reshaped the field. But he had not been among the original seeds when the tournament was first announced, making his route to the title an unusual case of a player moving into the seeded section and then winning the trophy without having to remove another seeded player.

That does not take anything away from the manner of the win. Woodhouse still had to complete the job across a demanding final session, beating Jimmy van Schie 6-3 in the quarter-finals before easing past Ricky Evans 7-2 in the semi-finals.

In the final, he took control early against Joyce, moving 3-0 ahead after landing a 140 checkout. Joyce fought back to 3-2 and later cut the gap again to 4-3, but Woodhouse kept finding the cleaner visits at the decisive moments.

A 74 finish pushed him 6-3 clear, a 76 checkout moved him to the brink, and the title was sealed in style after Joyce wired double 16 for a 108 finish to stay alive. Woodhouse returned on 160 and took it out in three darts.

The Baltic Sea Darts Open was already guaranteed to produce a first-time European Tour champion when Woodhouse and Joyce reached the final. By the end of the night, Woodhouse had joined an even shorter list.

His breakthrough now sits alongside Cullen’s 2022 Hungarian Darts Trophy run as one of the rare European Tour campaigns where the eventual champion did not beat a seeded opponent on the way to the title.