Van Dongen on decision to represent USA over Netherlands in darts: "I feel I can make more of an impact on US darts"

Jules van Dongen sealed his Tour Card at the turn of the year in shock fashion after only picking up darts in the past few years and his life has changed massively since then going from working in a distillery to being a full time pro.

“With all the travel back and forth to England, it was not possible to have a job and do all that,” he tells Daily Star Sport. “I made a decision pretty quick to give it 100 per cent.

“For the year-and-a-half from when I started [taking darts seriously], it felt like everything went my way. But since I got my Tour card, it’s been a wake-up call, like ‘hey, I need to step it up’. It’s been tough, but it’s a learning curve. It’s my first year, I just need to gain experience and get better.

“In June of last year, I played my first real tournament [Van Dongen won a WDF event in Florida]. I have to be careful of setting the bar too high and getting disappointed over and over. I just need to see the positives.”

Part of that is getting used to the crowd and playing at the UK Open prepared him for that.

“At the beginning it’s overwhelming. You look out at the crowd and you’re like ‘oh, that’s going be me in 15 minutes’. It’s hard to keep the nerves in check and get used to that.

“But the more you do it, it becomes a lot easier and you start having more fun on stage rather than focusing on trying to not look like a fool. Now, when I’m on that stage, I enjoy it. I love reacting to the crowd.”

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Being Dutch-American, there was still intrigue when he played Michael van Gerwen at the US Darts Masters and it lived up to the billing with some comments from Van Gerwen in particular post match when he said that Van Dongen doesn't have 20% of the talent he's got.

“I started really bad but he let me in a little bit and it became a real match,” he reflected on the match. “The crowd got really lively and I started enjoying it.

“I know he might not have been on his A-game but for me it didn’t matter, I just wanted to go on stage and make him sweat, and I think I did that. For me, it was job accomplished.

“Everyone was chanting ‘USA, USA’. I remember MVG said to the crowd a couple of times ‘he’s Dutch, he’s Dutch’. It was a lot of fun, probably the highlight of the year so far, along with the World Cup [Van Dongen represented the US at the World Cup of Darts in June].

But it also begs the question about his nationality being based in the US and making it his home but also being originally from the Netherlands.

“When I play darts, I feel really American,” he said. “Because in the Netherlands I believe we have about 19 Tour card holders so there’s plenty of good Dutch players.

“I feel I can make more of an impact on US darts than I can for the Netherlands. Also, I started playing for the US and I feel I owe it to the United States to play for them. I’m pretty proud of it.

“But outside of darts, I’m more Dutch than American, especially if the Netherlands were playing the United States at the World Cup, I’ll be wearing orange for sure.”