Philip Douglas Taylor (born 13 August 1960) is an English former professional darts player. Nicknamed "the Power", he dominated darts across three decades and is considered the greatest darts player of all time, having won 214 professional tournaments, including a record 87 major titles and a record 16 World Championships. In 2015, the BBC rated Taylor among the ten greatest British sportsmen of the last 35 years.

Taylor took up darts seriously in his mid-twenties and was sponsored and mentored in his early professional career by five-time world champion Eric Bristow. An unseeded 125/1 outsider at the 1990 BDO World Darts Championship, he defeated Bristow 6–1 in the final to win his first world title at age 29. In 1992, he won his second world title in dramatic fashion, defeating Mike Gregory 6–5 in a tiebreak leg after Gregory had missed six championship darts.

In 1993, Taylor was among 16 top players who broke away from the British Darts Organisation (BDO) to form the World Darts Council, later renamed the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC). He won the PDC World Darts Championship eight consecutive times from 1995 to 2002, reached 14 consecutive finals from 1994 to 2007 and reached 21 world finals overall, all of which are records. He held the world number one ranking for thirteen years in total, including eight in a row from 2006 to 2013. He won 70 PDC Pro Tour events, which was a record until Michael van Gerwen surpassed it in February 2019. Taylor hit a record 11 televised nine-dart finishes (and 22 overall). He was also the first person to hit two nine-dart finishes in the same match.

Taylor won the PDC Player of the Year award six times (2006, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012) and was twice nominated for the BBC Sports Personality of the Year, in 2006 and 2010; in the latter year, he finished as runner-up, making him the first darts player to finish in the top two. He was inducted into the PDC Hall of Fame in 2011. He retired from professional darts after the , where he finished as runner-up. He competed in the first three World Seniors Darts Championships from 2022 to 2024 but no longer plays darts competitively.

Early life Philip Douglas Taylor was born on 13 August 1960 in Stoke-on-Trent, the only child of Douglas and Elizabeth Taylor. His father worked at Platt's tile factory in Tunstall and the family lived in a dilapidated terraced house nearby, sleeping downstairs because the upstairs was condemned and boarded up. His childhood home had no electricity or running water, and he often scavenged for scrap metal or coal with his parents. Taylor enjoyed watching boxing as a child, and he played cricket for Mill Hill Middle School in Tunstall. After leaving school at age 16, he worked in a variety of manual jobs, including as a sheet metal worker, but his main occupation became manufacturing ceramic toilet roll holders, for which he earned £52 a week.

In 1977, when he was 17, Taylor met 15-year-old Yvonne at a disco in Tunstall. In 1982, after dating for five years, they began living together in a terraced house in Burslem that Taylor had purchased for £7,500, paying a mortgage of £80 a month. The first of their four children was born the following year. Taylor, whose father had taught him to play darts, occasionally played money games in pubs against county players, using his winnings to buy household items for the family home. He recalled once winning £500, which he used to have a shower fitted. "It was great. You'd have thought we were in Buckingham Palace," he commented.

In 1985, Taylor and Yvonne attended an exhibition match at a pub in Smallthorne by then-reigning world champion Eric Bristow, who had recently moved to North Staffordshire. After Taylor claimed he could beat Bristow, Yvonne bought him a new set of darts for his 25th birthday. He started practising regularly, often at Bristow's pub, the Crafty Cockney on Moorland Road in Burslem. (The pub is currently known as the Moorland Inn.) Within two years, Taylor was playing county darts for Staffordshire alongside Bristow. Impressed by Taylor's potential, Bristow lent him £10,000 to take care of his family as he established himself as a professional darts player, on condition that he give up his job in the ceramics industry.

Early career (1987–1993)

Bristow sponsored Taylor and they travelled to Las Vegas where Taylor was beaten in the first round of the North American Open as he struggled during his first year on tour.

Taylor's first title came at the Canadian Open in 1988, defeating then World Champion Bob Anderson in the final. After reaching the quarter-final of the British Open and the semi-final of the Winmau World Masters in 1989, he qualified for the World Championship for the first time in 1990. Although he had achieved some success in Open events, he went into the 1990 World Championship as a 125–1 unseeded outsider. He beat number six seed Russell Stewart 3–1 in the first round, Dennis Hickling 3–0 in the second round, Ronnie Sharp 4–2 in the quarter-finals and Cliff Lazarenko 5–0 to reach the final. He would then meet his mentor, Eric Bristow.

Bristow had been suffering with dartitis since 1986 but had recovered his world number one ranking to be the top seed in the event. After sharing the first two sets, Taylor beat Bristow 6–1 in sets to claim his first world title. For the rest of 1990, Taylor dominated the Open events taking the titles in the Isle of Man, Finland, North America, Denmark as well as the British Pentathlon, British Masters, Europe Cup and the game's second major tournament at the time, the Winmau World Masters.

Taylor's defence of the World Championship in 1991 ended at the quarter-final stage with a loss to Dennis Priestley, who went on to win his first world title. He picked up fewer titles in 1991 losing both his Danish Open and World Masters titles in finals to Rod Harrington. Taylor regained the World Championship title the following year beating Mike Gregory 6–5 in the final in a deciding leg. Gregory had missed six darts to win the title himself. Taylor has described the win as one of the favourites of his career. In 1993, Taylor became the landlord at the Cricketers Arms in Newcastle-under-Lyme.Edwards, Mervyn.

Split in darts

From a peak during the 1980s, the game of darts had lost many sponsors and almost all television coverage. Players felt that the BDO was no longer serving the interests of the game at the top level. In 1993, Taylor was among a group of top players, which included every previous world champion, who broke away from the game's ruling body, the British Darts Organisation, and formed their own organisation, the World Darts Council (WDC), later renamed the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC).

In the 1993 World Championship, the last unified World Championship to be held, Taylor lost in the second round to Kevin Spiolek. The BDO refused to allow the new organisation to set up and run their own tournaments, so the WDC players decided that they would no longer compete in the BDO World Championship. They founded the WDC World Darts Championship as an alternative. In the first WDC World Championship in 1994, Taylor lost to Priestley. However, Taylor would go on to dominate the event for the following decade and beyond.

PDC career 1994 to 1998 After losing to Priestley in the final of the first PDC World Championship in 1994,1994 World Championships – ONLY KNOWN FOOTAGE – Dennis Priestley Defeats Phil Taylor 6–1, channel WorldWideDarts, published 9 December 2014. Taylor began to dominate the event. Rod Harrington reached his first World Championship final in 1995 and, although he had won his previous three finals against Taylor in 1991 and 1992, Taylor took the title 6–2. It would be Harrington's only appearance in a World Final.PDC World Championship 1994, mastercaller.com, retrieved: 2 January 2019.

The finals of 1996, 1997 and 1998 would all feature Taylor and Priestley in a repeat of the inaugural final in 1994. Priestley achieved the first 100 average in a final in 1996 but still lost 6–4. The 1997 final saw Taylor recover from 0–2 down to win the title 6–3, and the 1998 final saw Taylor lose just two legs in the entire match en route to a 6–0 win and an average of 103.98. Taylor's victory and sixth title in 1998 meant that he had surpassed his mentor Eric Bristow's haul of five World Championships.

Taylor's record at Blackpool in the WDC's second major event, the World Matchplay, was not as strong early in his career as it has been in recent times. Taylor lost to Bob Anderson in 1994, Peter Evison in 1996 and Ronnie Baxter in 1998. However, he still won the event twice in the first five years of its existence, beating Priestley 16–11 in 1995 and Alan Warriner-Little 16–11 in 1997.

1999 to 2004 Taylor stretched his PDC World Championship unbeaten run to a record eight consecutive years beating Peter Manley in the 1999 and 2002 finals, Priestley for a fourth time in 2000, and John Part in 2001. Part would finally end the run by beating Taylor 7–6 (sets) in the 2003 World Championship final. Sid Waddell attributed this defeat to a weight-loss of three stone which he claimed affected Taylor's balance and resulted in him throwing "a quarter to half an inch below the 60 bed". Taylor went into the game a 1/7 favourite with bookmakers, but Part raced into leads of 3–0 and 4–1. Taylor fought back before ultimately being defeated 7–6.

Taylor would improve his record at Blackpool during this spell. After losing the 1999 semi-final of the World Matchplay to Manley, he would go on to win the title for the next five years (2000–2004) beating five different opponents in the final: Alan Warriner-Little (2000), Richie Burnett (2001), John Part (2002), Wayne Mardle (2003) and Mark Dudbridge (2004). By the end of 2004, Taylor had won 11 World Championships and seven World Matchplays.

Taylor has faced the incumbent BDO World Champion in challenge matches on two occasions. In 1999, he beat Raymond van Barneveld by 21 legs to 10 in a one-hour challenge dubbed "The Match of the Century" at the Wembley Conference Centre. The second challenge match came in 2004 against Andy Fordham at the Circus Tavern. Taylor was leading 5–2 in sets when Fordham, suffering a suspected asthma attack, abandoned the match.

2004 to 2008 Taylor reclaimed the World Championship in 2004 after edging Kevin Painter in the final 7–6 following a sudden death leg. After the match, having trailed 4–1 and 5–3, Taylor described himself as "a very lucky man" claiming that "Kevin out-played me". Referring to the epic World Championship final the previous year in which he had been defeated by John Part, Taylor added: "Last year was a good final, but this is one of the best".

Taylor would continue his dominance throughout 2005. However, after winning his 13th World Championship title in January 2006, he lost four matches in televised tournaments during the first half of the year. He lost to Jelle Klaasen and Simon Whitlock in the International Darts League tournament, and twice in a row to Raymond van Barneveld in the UK Open and the Las Vegas Desert Classic. He bounced back in the second half of the year to win the World Matchplay, the World Darts Trophy (a BDO affiliated event), and the World Grand Prix.

The 2007 World Final was contested between Taylor and Raymond van Barneveld. The match was tied at 6–6 in sets with van Barneveld leading 2–1 in legs. However, Van Barneveld missed four darts and Taylor tied the set at 2–2. The set went to 5–5 before van Barneveld won the sudden death leg for his fifth World Championship (four with the BDO and one with the PDC). Taylor said: "Of all the finals I've played in, I would probably put this one as the best."

2007 to 2008