Starting in February, the new PDC season will kick off with thirty Players Championship tournaments, thirteen Euro Tour tournaments and seven majors all counting towards to the
PDC Order of Merit.
Prior to the start of the new season, the Order of Merit has been cleaned up. Players who have lost their Tour Card have been removed from the ranking. Players who subsequently won their Tour Card back at the Q-School will have to start from scratch and have two years to reach the top 64 of the Order of Merit.
Rowby-John Rodriguez, for example, was particularly close to claiming it outright last year. The Austrian earned £46,500 for the world rankings last year, without a Tour Card. He finished 65th on the PDC Order of Merit after the World Darts Championship, one spot short of winning a Tour Card. Rodriguez did win that Tour Card at Q-School, but that meant starting from scratch again, and the same goes for his brother Rusty-Jake Rodriguez.
Bradley Brooks, Ted Evetts, Krzysztof Kciuk, Mickey Mansell, Scott Waites, Darren Webster and James Wilson had a Tour Card last year, but will start a new two-year term from 2022. They also did not keep their prize money from last season in the ranking. A total of 36 players start the season with £0.
Compete for number one position
Gerwyn Price starts the new season as number one in the world, but Peter Wright is breathing down his neck. Price's lead over Wright is just £15,250, a difference that can be made up for with two Pro Tour tournaments.
A good chance for Wright to take over first place comes at the UK Open (March 4-6). Price has to defend a final spot, while Wright made the last sixteen at that tournament in 2020. In any case, the Welshman and the Scot are well ahead of number three Michael van Gerwen, who has relatively no chance of taking over the number one position from one of his two major rivals before 2023.
PDC Order of Merit (Jan 24)
Rank - Name - Prize Money
1 Gerwyn Price £1,206,750
2 Peter Wright £1,191,500
3 Michael van Gerwen £656,750
4 James Wade £564,750
5 Michael Smith £540,750
6 Gary Anderson £487,500
7 Jose de Sousa £429,750
8 Jonny Clayton £415,250
9 Dimitri Van den Bergh £408,750
10 Rob Cross £357,000
11 Joe Cullen £313,750
12 Krzysztof Ratajski £310,250
13 Dave Chisnall £288,000
14 Nathan Aspinall £275,000
15 Dirk van Duijvenbode £271,750
16 Ryan Searle £261,250
17 Mervyn King £241,250
18 Danny Noppert £233.750
19 Luke Humphries £224,500
20 Stephen Bunting £224,250
21 Gabriel Clemens £218.25
22 Daryl Gurney £213,250
23 Brendan Dolan £206,000
24 Ian White £200,000
25 Simon Whitlock £199,750
26 Devon Petersen £195,500
27 Mensur Suljovic £192,000
28 Vincent van der Voort £178,000
29 Damon Heta £177,250
30 Callan Rydz £175,250
31 Glen Durrant £169,500
32 Chris Dobey £156,500
33 Ross Smith £144,250
34 Ryan Joyce £128,000
35 Kim Huybrechts £123,000
36 Jermaine Wattimena £116,250
37 William O'Connor £111,250
38 Jamie Hughes £111,250
39 Adrian Lewis £106,750
40 Martijn Tailor £105,500
41 Ricky Evans £103,000
42 Adam Hunt £87,500
43 Darius Labanauskas £86,000
44 Steve Lennon £85,000
45 Jeffrey De Zwaan £82,750
46 Jason Lowe £80,500
47 Luke Woodhouse £71,250
48 Maik Kuivenhoven £70,750
49 Madar Razma £70,750
50 Steve Beaton £70,000
51 Alan Soutar £67,000
52 Ron Meulenkamp £64,000
53 Jeff Smith £59,000
54 Steve West £58,500
55 William Borland £57,000
56 Andy Boulton £56,500
57 Keegan Brown £55,000
58 Raymond van Barneveld £53,500
59 Mike De Decker £53,000
60 Ryan Meikle £52,750
61 Boris Krcmar £50,000
62 Florian Hempel £49,000
63 John Henderson £48,750
64 Max Hops £48,000
65 Martin Schindler £45,500
66 Ritchie Edhouse £45,250
67 Keane Barry £40,250
68 Scott Mitchell £37,500
69 Lewis Williams £35,250
70 Joe Murnan £35,000
71 Jason Heaver £32,500
72 Boris Koltsov £23,000
73 Gordon Mathers £18,000
74 Adam Gawlas £17,500
75 John Michael £14,250
76 Peter Hudson £13,500
77 Eddie Lovely £11,500
78 Niels Zonneveld £10,750
79 Geert De Vos £10,000
80 Martin Lukeman £9500
81 Danny Baggish £8000
82 Andrew Gilding £8000
83 Geert Nentjes £8000
84 John Brown £8000
85 Jack Main £7000
86 Jon Worsley £6500
87 David Evans £6000
88 Berry of Pear £6000
89 Zoran Lerchbacher £6000
90 Brett Claydon £5000
91 Jake Jones £3500
92 Michael Unterbuchner £1500
93 Vladimir Andersen £0
Bradley Brooks £0
Kevin Burness £0
Richie Burnett £0
Matt Campbell £0
Jamie Clark £0
Kevin Doets £0
Jules van Dongen £0
Ted Evetts £0
Nick Fullwell £0
Jimmy Hendriks £0
Danny Jansen £0
Jose Justicia £0
Krzysztof Kciuk £0
George Killington £0
Mickey Mansell £0
Tony Martinez £0
Cameron Menzies £0
Damian Mol £0
Ross Montgomery £0
John O'Shea £0
Luc Peters £0
Ricardo Pietreczko £0
Nathan Rafferty £0
Brian Raman £0
Josh Rock £0
Rowby John Rodriguez £0
Rusty Jake Rodriguez £0
Connor Scutt £0
Radek Szaganski £0
Mario Vandenbogaerde £0
Scott Waites £0
Darren Webster £0
Shaun Wilkinson £0
James Wilson £0