The finer points of darts

Friday, June 30, 2006 | 7:38 a.m.

When Phil Taylor first entered dart tournaments, upgrading the cutlery or bedsheets served as incentive. Advance another round, and maybe he could afford to take the family on a little holiday.

After faring well in a 1988 open, he bought a new $750 shower.

"You'd turn it on and, 'Pfffffffffft!' " said the 45-year-old Taylor, with darting hand movements. "It was like heaven."

Now, a spacious new home or new Audi A8 don't compare to the excitement level of when, not so long ago, he would surprise his wife, Yvonne, with a new set of dish towels.

He soundly beat protege Adrian Lewis on Wednesday in the fifth Las Vegas Desert Classic at Mandalay Bay. Then the man widely known as the greatest player ever to throw a dart said he'll soon buy a Bentley Continental.

"But, to me, it's just a car," said the father of four in the private practice area surrounded by black carpet, black curtains and a high, black ceiling. "It won't mean a great deal. It's a great shame, getting used to things."

The dart world has gotten used to Taylor, a 13-time world champion with "The Power" stitched into the back of his black silk throwing shirt. He has grown accustomed to six-figure paychecks from sponsorships, endorsements and prize winnings.

He's come a long way since he made $150 a week in a ceramics factory, another $200 a week welding automobiles after knocking off from the factory and then $3 an hour when he tended late bar at a local pub.

"Always working," Taylor said.

His workplace now is the raised and klieg-lighted main throwing stage of the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC), and he is the link to the sport's past and future.

Lewis, 21, never had a chance, losing the best-of-11 "501" series, 6-0, before a live global Sky Sports television feed. To a crowd of about 300, amplifiers made the darts sound like distant mortar shells being fired.

He was better than that, Lewis told friends three hours before his sister Sharon's wedding at the Little Chapel of the Flowers. Keep trying, kid, but only ring me on the telly when you win something.

That was legendary thrower Eric Bristow's mantra to Taylor, to whom Bristow loaned 10,000 pounds to jump-start his protege's career in the late 1980s.

Bristow, 49, dominated that decade, drawing worldwide attention to darts. He won five world titles, some say because having six toes on his right foot gave him a balance advantage. He is the only player to be honored as a Member of the British Empire.

He picked up his "Crafty Cockney" nickname, and a red shirt - with a London bobby in the middle of a Union Jack on the back, below that moniker - from a Santa Monica, Calif., bar of the same name, in 1976.

The Hammer, Cool, Thunder, Hurricane, The Pride, Smiffy and Jackpot were some of the many other nicknames on silk backs at the Desert Classic. Tattooed forearms were as common as aliases.

Saturday's semifinals and Sunday's final begin at 11 a.m. The winner of the $175,000 event will pocket $26,000.

Bristow meticulously rolls his own cigarettes, but he's glad smoking and drinking are no longer permitted, as they were in the boom of the 1980s, during live competitions.

"I would hate," he said, "for someone to start smoking because I smoke."

Darts have always been his life. Some might have thought he was brash and belligerent, but 65-year-old vendor Bob Bettis never saw Bristow that way. Bristow seems to have a smile, a laugh or a handshake for everyone he meets.

"He never talks negatively," Bettis said. "He never thinks negatively. He's always positive. As far as I'm concerned, he's a true champion."

Bristow is also blunt. How did he hone Taylor into a champion? Guts, Bristow said. But he didn't exactly use that term. Dart players also call that "steel." Bristow analyzes matches for Sky and tips cameramen on close-up shots of the board.

On Monday, he rooted for four-time British Darts Organization (BDO) champion Raymond "Barney" van Barneveld in the final of an obscure Desert Classic qualifier, on one of 32 boards in a general area, against a fellow Brit.

A few Brits in that crowd arched eyebrows at Bristow when he cheered for Barney, a Dutch ace who, in February, left BDO for the more lucrative PDC.

Barney's lack of PDC points required him to qualify for one of the 32 seeded spots in the Classic, and he rebounded from a 3-1 deficit for a 4-3 victory in the best-of-seven event. Barney, sweating, said he owed the comeback to Bristow's loud encouragement.

Bristow nearly blushed at such hero-type recognition.

"He makes it look so easy, and he's great for the game," Bristow said. "I don't want all the best players to be English. Nothing against the other lad, but Barney's good for television."

Barney, 39, first threw a dart in 1983. For the next 10 years, he tossed the 22-gram tungsten nickel model that Bristow has long endorsed for Harrows, a dart manufacturer.

After his first title, thousands greeted Barney at Schiphol Airport in Amsterdam. "I was like Michael Jackson," he said. When he won his fourth world final last year, a third of Holland's population of 15 million watched the live television broadcast.

"On the street, they all know me as Barney," said the former postman and a father of three.

The chance to test himself against Taylor and a more prestigious tour schedule also helped lure Barney to the PDC.

"Would you rather compete in Las Vegas," he said, "or Scandinavia?"

Or Stoke-on-Trent? That's where, in Straffordshire, Bristow, Taylor and Lewis all reside. It wouldn't be wise to drop into a random pub and ask someone for a game of 501, would it?

"It wouldn't," Taylor said. "But there are a lot of bad players there, as well."

Then The Power winked.