Luke 'gutted' following surprise snub
Newbury’s Luke Humphries missed out on a place in darts' prestigious Premier League despite being named ProTour player of the year after winning five titles in 2022.
The Berkshire born-thrower enjoyed a breakthrough year, winning a maiden Players Championship crown before winning European Tour events in Munich, Prague, Stuttgart and Trier, pocketing £187,000 in prize money.
Cool Hand Luke also reached two major tournament semi-finals and rose to world number five in the rankings before enduring a difficult World Championship, crashing out in the fourth round after a 4-1 defeat to fellow Englishman Stephen Bunting.
At one stage the 27-year-old looked to be a shoo-in to make his full Premier League debut as one of the four players picked by the PDC and Sky Sports, but was snubbed along with European Champion Ross Smith in favour of four players ranked below him in Jonny Clayton, Nathan Aspinall, Dimtri Van den Bergh and Chris Dobey.
The Premier League is darts' biggest event excluding the World Championships and takes place across 17 nights throughout the UK and mainland Europe, taking in Belfast's SSE Arena, the Cardiff International Arena, the London O2, Berlin's Mercedes-Benz Arena and the Rotterdam Ahoy.
Humphries took to Twitter to express his disappointment at the decision, which caps a difficult start to the new year following underwhelming showings at the Bahrain Darts Masters and the Cazoo Masters.
"I can't deny that I'm incredibly gutted not to be involved in this year's Premier League," he said.
"I've worked really hard in 2022 to get the results that I have and all I can say is that I'm proud of my achievements even if they weren't quite good enough."
The PDC has since come under fire for awarding Humphries the ProTour player of the year and crowning Smith's European Championship win the performance of 2022 less than 24 hours after the corporation excluded the English duo from one of its showpiece events.
Humphries will now look to get his head down ahead of the coming campaign, knowing that if he can force his way into the world's top four he'll be guaranteed a place in next year's competition.
A major title has thus far eluded Cool Hand Luke, although he reached the last four of both the Grand Slam and Players' Championship in 2022 – if he can go one better, he'll be hard to ignore.
