Woodhouse keeps his cool for success on the oche

LAID-BACK Luke Woodhouse reckons a refusal to lose his head has been key to his surge in darts.

The English star is rocketing up the rankings and has bagged two PDC titles during a superb 2026 campaign.

Woodhouse is into the last 16 of the European Championship and, as well as Dortmund, he has the talent to make a dent in some massive events before the end of the campaign.

The temperament is also there as the 37-year-old admits being too harsh on himself was a problem from the past that he has solved.

Woodhouse explained: "I try through my games all the time to try and keep nice and calm. I've had it before where, years and years ago, I used to struggle with my emotions quite a lot. I'd beat myself up, or I'd get a bit irate and stuff."

Asked what has changed, he continued: "I had to. I haven't gone to any sort of professionals or anybody else really. I just speak to my wife, speak to my management. To improve, I've had to adapt and I've had to overcome those sort of things where the amount of time, to be honest, I've had a lot of professionals speak to me and say they used to know when they were on top of me or when they could beat me if I lost my head too early. So me going, well, I don't want to give them anything, so let's work on this.

"But it's only myself that's worked on it, no one else really. And, of course, winning games,confidence, all that, it helps you then to become a better player and to feel like you're in control a lot more. Like I said, it's just through myself, working harder.

"I think the mental side of darts is probably at least 80/85 per cent of the game. There's so many good players involved. So I think, yeah, for me, it was so important."

Woodhouse showed that composed exterior when, after hitting a nine-darter against Dirk van Duijvenbode on night one in Dortmund, he kept emotions firmly in check afterwards to go on and complete his polished win over the Dutchman.

He said: "I felt pretty good practising and stuff. It's one of them. Everyone I think wants to hit a nine-darter on the main stage. But the main thing is, a bit cliche, but everyone wants to win this first sort of round and then you want to get into the meat of the tournament where it's first to ten.

"I mean I don't even know what the average was but I felt really good so, especially after the nine, I've always thought if I hit a nine darter, I'd feel really like massive adrenaline, but I just tried to keep myself nice and composed and move on and I think it helped I didn't know whose throw was the next leg to be honest.

"So when it was my throw and then I went off two treble twenties again, I thought: You've got this, so do not let him get back in because he struggled a little bit, Dirk. But everyone knows what Dirk can do so I didn't want to let him back in so yeah, I just tried to sort of keep on top of it.

"It's always the treble 19 for me because I think we throw treble 20s all the time. So once we got that treble 19, obviously for the 141. At the Worlds, I crapped myself but it felt really, really good. It felt nice and smooth and clean so yeah, it's lovely to do on TV. Like I said, it's boring but the win was more important for me."

Woodhouse also appears unfazed at the fact he has £40,000 defend this weekend in his ranking having made the Euro semi finals in 2024.

He added: "Maybe it's because it's the first sort of thing, but I think you can speak to anyone that knows me and has been around me a long time. I'm pretty laid back.

"I really enjoy competing, I really enjoy playing darts, so I hope I don't get to a point where I worry about what I'm defending and stuff like that and I just keep playing.

"I love playing darts, I love competing, I love being in these big arenas in front of the big crowd. So hopefully it just continues I'll just keep picking them up and keep going up there with sort of no worries or no sort of hindrances of what I'm defending."