{"id":5954,"date":"2022-02-21T15:11:29","date_gmt":"2022-02-21T15:11:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dartoidsworld.net\/2022\/02\/column-hr329-price-is-right\/"},"modified":"2024-02-14T22:21:24","modified_gmt":"2024-02-14T22:21:24","slug":"column-hr329-price-is-right","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dartoidsworld.net\/2022\/02\/column-hr329-price-is-right\/","title":{"rendered":"Column #HR329  PRICE IS RIGHT!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Monday, February 21, 2022<br \/>\n<\/strong><strong>Column HR329<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>PRICE IS RIGHT!<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The Old Dart Coach never said, “It is better to be a has-been than a never-was\u201d to those who leveled cheap shots at the senior darters.\u00a0 But Dave Justice did.\u00a0 He was a top player in the Motha country back when paper and feather flights were in vogue.\u00a0 Justice played in coat and tie.\u00a0 He was spiffy and good.<\/p>\n<p>And when the\u00a0quality of some of the seniors’ play was criticized the ODC also never said, \u201cNo man ever steps in the same river twice, for it’s not the same river and he’s not the same man.”\u00a0 That quote is credited to\u00a0Heraclitus, born in 535 BC.\u00a0 He played with Mr. John Lowe.\u00a0 Both had signature darts by Unicorn.<\/p>\n<p>Years from now, when today\u2019s stars are eligible to compete on the Senior Tour, their performance will also be compared – to the new stars of that day and age.\u00a0 It’ natural but such questions, such comparisons, are as useless as piglet feeding instruments on a boar hog.<\/p>\n<p>Dublin, Ireland, played host to Night 3 of the Premier League…<\/p>\n<p>For Michael Smith it was not the best night as he absorbed another 6-3 loss. \u00a0He averaged 103.55 with a 50% exit rate.\u00a0 His problem was Gerwyn Price who was\u00a0<em>candente<\/em>\u00a0(really hot), averaging 108.45 and checking\u00a06 of 7.<\/p>\n<p>Smith took leg one in 15 darts with d20.\u00a0 Price held serve to level in 14, then followed with wins in 13 and 14.\u00a0 Smith would answer in 13 when his T80 left him 36.\u00a0 The \u201cnot lately Bully Boy\u201d clawed back with a slick 12-darter, including a 144-check (t20, t20, d12) to get to 3-4.\u00a0 The winner for Price came with \u201cThe Big Fish\u201d (T70) after Smith missed d15.<\/p>\n<p>Joe Cullen\u2019s hot streak came to an abrupt end when Michael van Gerwen laid a 6-3 loss on him.\u00a0 It was sloppy as they both averaged 91-plus (largely a result of their finishing only 9 times from 39 darts). All games ended in 14 or 15 darts except for a pair of 19 and 20 darters.\u00a0 Good-bye averages.<\/p>\n<p>During the week, Gary Anderson said (as reported via an interpreter), \u201cI\u2019m enjoying playing the Premier League this year.\u201d\u00a0 On the surface that would make sense as against Peter Wright, Anderson would check 100%, match Wright in T80s (4), have more T40s (6-5) but get buried in ton-pluses (17-7) resulting in a 6-4 loss.\u00a0 Wright had an 11 and 12 dart legs that included 3 of his 4 T80s.\u00a0 \u00a0Anderson also had a pair of T80s which tied it at 1 and then took leads of 2-1 and 3-2.<\/p>\n<p>James Wade is the Rodney Dangerfield of the PDC.\u00a0 He “gets no respect.\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0He would win a pair of matches – Jonny Clayton (6-3) and Peter Wright (6-4) – to reach the finals.\u00a0 Against Clayton he averaged 93.13 and checked 6\/18.\u00a0 Against Wight he was outscored 105-102.\u00a0 But on this night he was ignored as he was sandwiched between Gerwyn Price’s \u201cbring the house down\u201d games.\u00a0 In show biz terms Wade had to follow \u201cthe kid’s act.”.<\/p>\n<p>Gerwyn Price was magnificent.\u00a0 Against van Gerwen and tied at 2 – of those legs 3 were 13 darts – Price tossed a 9-darter (177, T80 – leaving 144, then t20, t20, d12).\u00a0 van Gerwen would claw back, from 4-2 down, to tie at 5 in 12, 13 and 14 darts.\u00a0 Price would end it in 11 darts (T80, T80, 85 then 16, d20).<\/p>\n<p>Against Wade in the finals and level at 1, Price would toss his second 9-darter of the night (T80, T80, t19, t20, d12).\u00a0 During one of his T80s he dropped a dart.\u00a0 He picked it up and tossed another T80 – turning to the crowd to say, “Like that?\u201d\u00a0 Wade would lead 4-3 with a chance at 5-3 but failed from 57 missing the d4.\u00a0 Price used a pair of 15 darters to close the action.<\/p>\n<p>The 43rd\u00a0Annual $22,810 Syracuse Open was filled with the best in North America.\u00a0 Leonard \u201cSoldier\u201d Gates made it three singles wins on the trot with a 3-1 victory in the pro singles coming from 1-nil down to defeat Chris Franklin. \u00a0Gates ended the tournament with a win in the cricket singles (that doesn\u2019t count).<\/p>\n<p>The ADO singles had Gates strolling along, going 15-1, when he encountered Larry Butler in the semifinals. \u00a0Gates went up 1-nil in a seemingly endless 22 darts.\u00a0 Then 1-1.\u00a0 The tide turned when Butler erased a three dart out as Gates waited on 81. \u00a0Butler took the three legs (14, 14 and 16 darts) for a finals placing.<\/p>\n<p>Butler would face Joey Lynaugh in the finals.\u00a0 Lynaugh eliminated PDC Tour player Jules van Dongen who hung a 3-0 Synder on Danny Lauby.\u00a0 It was Lauby\u2019s first match. \u00a0\u00a0Butler took a 3-1 lead, coasting to a 4-1 win.\u00a0 The Eagle soared with a storm warning for the ladies – in the form of The Texas Titian Tornado, Paula Murphy.<\/p>\n<p>Murphy had a weekend of which stories are told.\u00a0 Well at least this one…<\/p>\n<p>In ’01 singles she lost nary a leg (9-0) when she met Tracy Feiertag (9-1) in the finals.\u00a0 Down 1-2, Murphy erased 109 to level – then 94 to win.\u00a0 Feiertag put ugly on 63 missing 4.<\/p>\n<p>Murphy also took the cricket singles without losing a leg defeating top players Cali West (2-0), Trish Gresik (2-0) and\u00a0Brenda Roush in the final (3-0).<\/p>\n<p>In the mixed trips Murphy was part of a super trio joining Leopard Gates and Danny Lauby.\u00a0 They strolled to a 3-0 win.\u00a0 The first leg ended when Murphy tossed 100 to leave 164 which Lauby erased. They all started the second leg with T40s. \u00a0The winning dart was double tops by Murphy.<\/p>\n<p>Murphy continued her S&amp;D (Search &amp; Destroy) mission with a Ladies Doubles win, partnering with Maria Carli and defeating Robin Curry and Cali West 3-0.\u00a0 The first leg went in 30 darts after Curry-West missed 6 doubles.\u00a0 A win\u2019s a win.<\/p>\n<p>The ODC never attended the Syracuse Open but many times he went to next week’s $25,090 Camellia Classic in Sacramento, California, which used to be called New Helvetia.\u00a0 The first two times it was a bar shoot – now it’s a big time stop on the ADO \u201cNo Host Cocktail Tour.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cAngelo\u201d posted in advance on the Syracuse Darts Facebook page, \u201cThere should be a zoo of drunk people doing stupid shit.\u201d\u00a0 \u201cTom\u201d answered with, \u201cIt\u2019s called a dart tournament.\u201d\u00a0 The ODC is now sorry he missed it – but it does sound like the old Camellia.<\/p>\n<p>One year at the Camellia, a sleeping darter was found in the parking lot.\u00a0 A concerned person called an ambulance as she thought he was dead. \u00a0He wasn\u2019t dead – he played singles the next day.<\/p>\n<p>Another darter, having discovered Peach Brandy (never good), was also happily asleep in a hole in the parking lot.\u00a0 When called for the singles a search party formed.\u00a0 They escorted him from said parking lot hole to the proper dart board…<\/p>\n<p>The problem was he had only 2-darts…<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhere\u2019s your other dart?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cDon\u2019t know.\u00a0 I was at the bar, then my car and then a hole in the parking lot.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He borrowed a dart and won.\u00a0 The crowd felt sorry for his opponent, so they took up a collection and paid his entry fee.<\/p>\n<p>Them was the days.<\/p>\n<p>Who, you might ask said, \u201cIt\u2019s better to have been a has-been than a never-was\u201d?\u00a0 That would be Cecil Parkinson.\u00a0 He also said, “In politics you get what you deserve rather than what you want.”<\/p>\n<p>Smart guy, old Cecil.<\/p>\n<p>Stay thirsty my friends.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Old Dart Coach never said, “It is better to be a has-been than a never-was\u201d to those who leveled cheap shots at the senior darters.\u00a0 But Dave Justice did…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4125,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_eb_attr":"","_uag_custom_page_level_css":"","site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center 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Old Dart Coach never said, \"It is better to be a has-been than a never-was\u201d to those who leveled cheap shots at the senior darters.\u00a0 But Dave Justice did...","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"authors":[{"term_id":17,"user_id":4,"is_guest":0,"slug":"howie-reed","display_name":"Howie Reed","avatar_url":{"url":"https:\/\/dartoidsworld.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/111howie.jpg","url2x":"https:\/\/dartoidsworld.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/02\/111howie.jpg"},"first_name":"Howie","last_name":"Reed","user_url":"http:\/\/www.dartoidsworld.com","job_title":"","description":"Astute, often controversial, and always humorous, the Old Dart Coach, Howie Reed (a former rodeo cowboy and advertising executive), is heralded as the Dean of Darts Chroniclers - the most prolific and widely followed writer ever about our sport.  He goes back decades with the legends and knows where the skeletons are buried (just ask any of the ADO and WDF old-timers!).  Here are four well-known facts about the Old Dart Coach: 1) he is a Republican, 2) he loves the ladies, 3) he can drink most anybody under the table, and 4) he throws darts as bad as Dartoid."}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dartoidsworld.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5954","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dartoidsworld.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dartoidsworld.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dartoidsworld.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dartoidsworld.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5954"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dartoidsworld.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5954\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6196,"href":"https:\/\/dartoidsworld.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5954\/revisions\/6196"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dartoidsworld.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4125"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dartoidsworld.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5954"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dartoidsworld.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5954"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dartoidsworld.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5954"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dartoidsworld.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=5954"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}