A Smash hit — An interview with Martin Lukeman
The World Number 38 talks his start, his phenomenal 2022 — and how he didn’t realise he was left eye dominant until he earned a Tour Card
Martin Lukeman has made a meteoric rise through the sport of darts over the last few years.
Since gaining his Tour Card in 2021, ‘Smash’ has risen through the ranks, reaching a European Tour Final, the Quarter-Finals of both the UK Open and the Grand Prix, as well as reaching back to back World Championships and Players Championship Finals in the last two years.
I sat down with the Watford based thrower to discuss everything from how he started in darts, to his phenomenal 2022 — and how he didn’t even know he was left eye dominant until he held a tour card.
We started from the start — and where it all began:
“I was about 23–24.
I had a dart board up, and one week my mate goes tells me that he was going darts one night.
So I said let me come down and have a game, and then he turns around and goes ‘alright cool’.
The next week I went down and I was like the best player there at the end of the night — I think I lost in the final and won the singles the week after, and it just went from there basically.”
We then discussed the next step — and when, or even if, he realised he was good enough for the professional ranks:
“I always knew I was good at darts.
I wasn’t a very good counter at the start, and it probably took me five or six years to get there, and even now I still make stupid little mistakes.
I don’t know, I think I always knew I had the ability, but I worked loads of 9–5s, and I mean, I won a lot of open competitions, played well at County and Super League, so I don’t know, it just came to the point of someone turning around and saying ‘I’ll sponsor you’, and I was like alright, let’s give it a crack.”
His first big run at a major event came in 2017, when he reached the Last 16 of the UK Open — and reflecting on the experience, he said:
“I think the first time I was a lot more sort of, not nervous, but you’re thinking ‘right, what’s going to happen here?’ and stuff like that.
And then I played really well in that competition,
I got to the Last 16, and it was then I realised ‘Yeah, I can do this.’”
The next thing that we spoke about was Q-School. The dream of getting onto the PDC Tour is one so few achieve, and the process of Q-School is tough in itself. Martin finally made onto the Pro Tour in 2021, and Martin shared his experiences of getting onto the Tour:
“I don’t know how many times I went to Q-School- four or five times I think.
Some years I didn’t get a point and other times I was points away.
It just wasn’t going my way, and even the Q-School I did get my tour card was the one where they introduced that first stage, and I only just got through that with four points.
I had to beat the Russian lady, Anastasia, and I beat her and I got through and I was like ‘Right, get back to the hotel room and chill out’, because I’d already done three days, and was facing possibly another four days.
But then something just kicked in with me those first three days, and I got enough points and I didn’t even have to play the fourth day.
But it is gruelling. It’s absolutely gruelling. It’s cruel. I wouldn’t want to go back there.”
After taking great joy in reminding him that Q-School won’t be calling his name for some time to come, we got on to his time on the Pro Tour. After a solid first year, it was 2022 where he truly found his feet in the PDC, reaching the World Matchplay, the Quarter-Finals of the World Grand Prix, and a European Tour Final, which helped him reach the European Championship:
“I think the first year — I didn’t do particularly well first year.
I think I earned about £9,000 or something or whatever it was, it might have been less than that.
I was practicing a lot, doing this and doing that, and it was, I don’t know, it wasn’t working.
So, at the beginning of 2022, I started doing a bit less practice, and going out a bit more in the evenings and practicing a bit, doing what I had to do during the day.
I quit my job as well. Me and my wife had a chat and she said look, ‘Just quit your job, we’ve got enough to last a year — just go for it.’
And that’s what I did (chuckle).”
As mentioned, Martin made a European Tour Final in the 2022 season, and he says that the European Tours played a big role in his progression in not just stage darts, but the sport as a whole:
“To be fair, there isn’t much different in lots of the events, apart from maybe the venue, and how important that certain venue is, like the Matchplay and the World Championship.
But the crowd sizes, especially on the Europeans on like Saturdays and Sundays, they’re quite big.
It seems very similar, so I did get a lot of practice that year on the European Tour — and then I found my own.
I started basically playing well from the first comp. Mind you, I actually lost my first comp against Dimitr [Van den Bergh], but after that I sort of kicked on.
This year’s costing me though because I’m defending nine Europeans (chuckle.)”
One thing Martin has gained note for over the years is his distinctive throwing action — being part of a distinct club of left eye dominant players — Not that he knew it for a long time. Breaking down his action and the revelation of being left eye dominant, he said:
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“Yeah, the first time I picked up a dart I think I’ve always thrown like that.
To be fair I didn’t even know I was left eye dominant until my first streaming game against Whitlock when I first got my Tour Card and [Paul] Nicholson mentioned it.
So I looked back at all my other stuff on YouTube, and I was like ‘Wow I am left eye dominant!”
I didn’t even know I was left eye dominant.
Like in my eyes, my flight is right between my nose, but it’s not, it’s coming over to my left eye, but in my eyes it’s straight on top of my nose.”
As for the darts themselves, Martin uses kite flights. On how he came to don kites at the top of his arrows, he said:
“When I first started playing darts, like playing like leagues and Super League and stuff, I used to use the Mark Walsh kite ones.
Remember the red and black ones? I used them for years.
Then I went to a normal flight for a while, for maybe two or three years, and I was like ‘Nah, I’m just not getting along with these’, and I just went back to the kites and I’ve used them ever since.
They seem to flick up a bit better for me.”
He has his own range of darts produced by Mission — and the story behind the deal is an amusing one:
“Well, my manager, Steve Goddard, contacted Steve Reed before I had a tour card, and he said, ‘Look, I’m going to sponsor this player, do you fancy sorting him out some equipment and everything else?’
He said we aren’t going to take on any players who don’t have a tour card, so then three weeks later — I went and got a tour card, so he went back to them and said look he’s got a tour card now, and they basically sorted the contract out and it went from there (chuckle).”
As mentioned earlier, 2022 was a fantastic year for Smash — but, with the rankings system working on a two year cycle, he has a fair amount to defend during this season. At the time of writing, he sits just outside of the qualification spots for the Matchplay and Grand Prix, but he’s in the spots for the Players Championship final and World Championship. On the weight of major qualification, he said:
It’s in the back of your head, particularly when you’re defending money.
It’s like, I’m defending Quarter-Final money this year at the Grand Prix, I’m defending money at the Europeans, I’m defending, I think, 10 grand from the Matchplay.
You know I’m defending a lot of money this year, so If I can get in to at least the Grand Prix I’ll be happy, and the Worlds and the Players Championships at the back end of the year.
But I’m alright, I’m literally doing my dart room/man cave at the moment, so that’ll be finished soon, and I can have a Scolia up and I’ll be doing some good practice in there.”
As it goes, I had the privilege of meeting Martin at the UK Open earlier in 2024, when I took part in his press conference after his superb victory over Gary Anderson. At the time, having knocked out two former Champions in a row (having beaten Danny Noppert in the round prior) he said he wasn’t fussed about beating any given person — so I asked whether that was still the case months down the line — or whether that win over a legend like Anderson meant more:
“I used to think like that, but now, when you start playing each other, it changes.
Gary beat me last time, and before that I beat Gary, I’ve beaten Michael [van Gerwen], Michael’s beaten me.
You know, at the beginning you think ‘Ooh I’ve just beaten that player’, and now it’s like I don’t care who I beat, you just want to crack on and win the competition.
I know it sounds weird, but the longer you have your tour card , you know at first, you’re a bit, not star struck, but you look around and think ‘He’s there, he’s there, he’s there’, but when you start playing them you think, we’re all just there to get a wage at the end of the day, and trying to do the best we can.”
He made it into the Top 32 earlier in 2024, and I wanted to know what his hopes for the future were after that achievement — and he was honest on his long term plans:
“I’ll be happy to get back into that top 32 — I got into there this year but I knew I’d come straight back out because I was defending a lot of money.
I think I was in there for a week, or five days, or whatever it was, but yeah I’d like to get established in the top 32 and build from there.
But I’m not looking to have a massive long career in darts.
I love darts and everything, but the travelling and the stuff like that is just — it can be gruesome sometimes.
You’re away from family and you just never have a chance to do anything, but it’s the name of the game, you just have to plod along and get on with it.”
To finish, I had to fact check every student’s secret friend Wikipedia, which describes Martin as a ‘skilled marksman’ who enjoys clay pigeon shooting, having done it with the PDC. So I simply asked — Is he? He says:
“I’d never been shooting before.
Dan just asked me if I wanted to do something with the PDC, and I said yeah I’ll go along.
We went and picked them up and we went down there. Originally we were going to go fishing, but they’ve done that loads of times, so we went shooting.
I went down there and whopped them (chuckle).
That was another thing — I was missing all the time because I was left eye dominant, and the guy teaching us, the instructor, he said to me close, I can’t remember which eye it was, the right eye or the left eye, as soon as I did that, I was pinging them every time.
I was like a metre out before and had both eyes opened, but my left eye dominance kicked in again.”
And that was my interview with Martin Lukeman. A big thanks to Martin for an interesting chat. You said Gary was a gentleman after your match at the UK Open — and same most certainly applies to you.
Thanks also to Martin’s wife Melanie for help in setting the interview up. If you want to support Smash, you can get his darts, flights, shirt, and other accessories through Darts Corner. If you want to book him for an exhibition or enquire about merchandise directly, head to martinlukeman.com — and on his ebay, there are a few match worn shirts available for purchase if you want a piece of Smash history. You can follow him on X @smashlukeman180, and on Facebook at Martin “SMASH” Lukeman.
Ryan Segal
Follow me on X and Instagram @theryansegal
