What Is A Nine-Dart Finish? Darts’ Perfect Leg Explained

A nine-dart finish is the perfect leg of darts: 501 checked out in the minimum possible number of throws. Nine darts, no waste, one finishing double. It is the sport’s version of a 147 break or a hole-in-one, and it is the reason this site is called what it is.

Here is how the perfect leg actually works, the routes the pros take to get there, and the nine-darters that dragged darts into the mainstream.

The maths behind the perfect leg

Every standard professional leg starts at 501 and must end on a double. The maximum score with a single dart is 60 (treble 20), so nine darts gives a theoretical ceiling of 540 — comfortably more than 501, but only just enough room to land exactly on a finishing double.

That is the squeeze. Eight darts cannot get you there: 8 x 60 = 480, which leaves 21 and no way to close on a double. Nine is the floor, and it demands that essentially every dart is a big one.

The routes players actually take

There is no single “correct” nine-darter, but two paths dominate the highlight reels.

The 180-180-141 route. Two maximums put you on 141, then treble 20, treble 19, double 12 closes it. It is the most common finish you will see on television, largely because players are already grooved into the treble 20 bed by the time the third visit arrives.

The three-167s route. 501 divides neatly by three, so three visits of 167 — treble 20, treble 19, bullseye — also does the job. Ending on the bull is the showman’s version, and it is rarer precisely because the last dart is the hardest one on the board.

Beyond those, dozens of combinations work. Players who miss the 20 bed early can rescue the leg through the treble 19 or treble 17, and the finishing double shifts accordingly — double 18, double 12 and double 15 all appear regularly. What never changes is the requirement: nine scoring darts, no slack, no second chances.

The nine-dart finishes that changed darts

John Lowe, 1984. The first televised nine-darter, hit at the MFI World Matchplay against Keith Deller on 13 October 1984. Lowe collected £102,000 for it — extraordinary money for darts at the time, and the moment the perfect leg became a story outside the sport.

Paul Lim, 1990. The first nine-darter at a World Championship, hit at Lakeside. Lim’s leg is still the reference point for how long the wait can be at the biggest events.

Phil Taylor, 2010. Two nine-darters in a single match, in the Premier League final against James Wade. Nobody had done it before on television, and it remains the outlier performance against which everything else is measured.

Adrian Lewis, 2011. A nine-darter in a PDC World Championship final against Gary Anderson — the first time the perfect leg had landed on the sport’s biggest stage of all.

Michael van Gerwen, 2013. His World Championship semi-final against James Wade produced a nine-darter inside one of the highest-quality televised matches ever played. Taylor and Van Gerwen have hit more perfect legs between them than anyone else in the game.

How rare is a nine-darter really?

Rarer than the highlight packages suggest. The PDC logs every ranked nine-darter across its televised and Pro Tour events, and the running total has climbed steadily as the tour has expanded — more floor events and more players simply mean more chances. Kim Huybrechts’ recent entry into that list is a good illustration of how the PDC’s perfect-leg count keeps ticking over.

But the volume masks the odds. A player can go an entire career without one. Most professionals who hit a nine-darter hit it once. The scoring standard at the top of the game has risen sharply — averages in the low 100s are now routine rather than remarkable — which is why the perfect leg feels more frequent than it is.

The modern nine-darter

Two things have changed the texture of it. The first is the depth of scoring power: a floor event in Leicester or Wigan can contain 100 players capable of back-to-back 180s, so the raw probability of somebody producing nine perfect darts on a given day has gone up.

The second is the Littler generation. Josh Rock announced himself by hitting a nine-darter on his Premier League debut — the kind of debut that used to belong in fiction. Luke Littler, meanwhile, has spent 2026 turning the extraordinary into the expected, holding the world title and top spot in the Order of Merit while chasing a clean sweep of majors. You can read where that bid stands in our rundown of what still separates Littler from darts history.

One caveat worth knowing: not every format allows a nine-darter. The World Grand Prix uses a double-start, meaning players must open on a double as well as close on one. The minimum there is a ten-dart leg, and the perfect nine-darter is mathematically impossible.

What to watch for

If you want to spot one coming, count the darts, not the score. Two maximums and the crowd noise tells you everything — the third visit is when the arena changes pitch. Treble 20, treble 19, and the room holds its breath for a double 12 that looks about the size of a postage stamp.

That is the appeal. Nine darts is not just a score. It is a leg in which absolutely nothing went wrong.

Fixtures, formats and results are confirmed via the PDC and Sky Sports Darts.

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