“It was sort of overnight,” Glen Durrant admitted, after taking a moment to think back and remember his career.
Duzza, as he’s affectionately known, was very much a late bloomer in the world of darts – only securing his first PDC tour card in 2019, when he was 48. However, the flick of the switch came a couple of years before he first took to a PDC oche.
A World Masters semi-final in 2014 was just the start: in 2015, Duzza would claim the World Masters and the Finders Master. He could call himself World Champion in 2017 and completed the set with the World Trophy in 2018.
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Duzza was in his pomp in 2018, winning the BDO World Championship, World Trophy and Finder Masters – and only losing out to Adam Smith-Neale in the final of the World Masters.
“I would average in my 90s for a good five or six years, and it’s almost like I just bypassed all of that, and then one day I was averaging hundreds,” Duzza told Daily Star Sport, via OLBG, reflecting on that period of his career.
“So it was an interesting one, that it was in my mid-40s, especially when you’re seeing Luke [Littler] doing what he’s doing at such a young age.”
After establishing himself at the top of the BDO, Durrant decided to try his luck in the PDC – in a move akin to Hulk Hogan swapping WWF for WCW. He secured his Tour Card through Q-School, surviving match darts from Matthew Dennant to qualify via the Order of Merit.
From there, his career went into orbit. Durrant reached a Players Championship final in only his second PDC event, before going one better the following week to claim his first PDC title.
By May, he had added a second ranking title, beating Michael van Gerwen in the semi-finals before dispatching Darius Labanauskas in the final.
Duzza was suddenly mixing it with the biggest names in the sport, beating Adrian Lewis, van Gerwen and James Wade on his way to the semi-finals of the World Matchplay in the summer.
He then reached the quarter-finals of his maiden World Championship, where he was beaten by Gerwyn Price.
But the disappointment did not last long.
With the world soon plunged into lockdown, Durrant topped the league phase of a hastily reorganised Premier League – becoming only the third player to do so after Michael van Gerwen and Phil Taylor.
He before survived match darts against Gary Anderson in the semi-final before beating Nathan Aspinall in the final to win the Premier League at the first time of asking in 2020.
It’s a rise we are unlikely to see again for a very long time.
Now working with Sky Sports, Durrant looked back on his own route to the top and admitted there are now “so many pathways” available to players.
“There’s a guy called Derek Coulson who’s mopping up the amateur side of the game right now, and I think he’s in his mid-50s. There’s opportunities for really young players with a JDC, with the Development Tours.
“There’s also still pathways for people older. It does feel more and more these days like a young player’s game. I certainly knew when I reached 50 that playing two or three games over consecutive nights was getting more and more difficult.
“And I’m watching Mitchell Lawrie now, very, very similar to the story of Luke Littler. It just feels right now it’s a young player’s game.”