{"id":5999,"date":"2022-08-31T10:23:11","date_gmt":"2022-08-31T10:23:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dartoidsworld.net\/2022\/08\/column-hr367-the-spotted-owl\/"},"modified":"2024-02-14T22:18:12","modified_gmt":"2024-02-14T22:18:12","slug":"column-hr367-the-spotted-owl","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dartoidsworld.net\/2022\/08\/column-hr367-the-spotted-owl\/","title":{"rendered":"Column #HR367 The SPOTTED OWL"},"content":{"rendered":"

Wednesday, August 31, 2022
\n<\/strong>Column HR367<\/strong>
\nThe SPOTTED OWL<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Spotted Owl is an endangered species listed with the Bald Eagle.\u00a0 The action to list the Spotted Owl was fueled by those who feared it would be pushed to extinction as logging expanded.\u00a0 Most of these folks wouldn’t\u00a0recognize a Spotted Owl if one bit them on the ass.\u00a0 (The only owl they recognize is the “Night Owl\u201d they married.)<\/p>\n

A darter\/hunter was arrested for shooting and killing a Spotted Owl.\u00a0 He appeared in court.<\/p>\n

\u201cDid you shoot and kill a\u00a0Spotted Owl?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cYes, your Honor.\u00a0 It was a mistake.\u00a0 I was hunting the Flighty Dickcissel.\u00a0 I shot.\u00a0 The Spotted Owl flew in front of my gun.\u201d<\/p>\n

“What did you do with the dead owl?\u201d<\/p>\n

“As a hunter\/sportsman,\u00a0I ate it.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat did it taste like?\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot like a Bald Eagle.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Spotted\u00a0Owl, like birds everywhere, survives in any environment.\u00a0 Darts is the bird of sports.\u00a0 Able to adapt.<\/p>\n

Darts was sailing along – then, drunk driving laws turned draconian…<\/p>\n

To deal with reduced revenue, pubs moved to machine darts.\u00a0 Tournaments still flourished when hit by Covid.\u00a0 In England, the\u00a0demise of the BDO and\u00a0strict\u00a0driving laws caused concern – but the PDC rode to the rescue injecting new interest.<\/p>\n

In North America, there emerged the Darts Players of (name a city – New York, Chicago, Los Angeles – “DP” is popping up everywhere) which presents a format for \u201cserious players\u201d that begat the Championship Dart Circuit.\u00a0 The beating heart of darts are\u00a0local leagues, the grass roots.<\/p>\n

Rumors abounded that the World Dart Series’ trips to Australia and New Zealand (where men are men and sheep are nervous) would\u00a0be made redundant.\u00a0 Then, after the\u00a0penultimate\u00a0stop in Wollongong, the PDC announced, “We are happy with the crowds and will be back next year.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0 The last stop was\u00a0in Hamilton, New Zealand.\u00a0 The question was, “Can Clayton win back-to-back?\u201d<\/p>\n

Prior\u00a0to start of play, James Wade was quoted as saying,\u00a0<\/em>\u201cGerwyn Price is the nicest fellow in darts.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0Price responded by eliminating Wade in the first round 6-2.<\/p>\n

Price then took out Dimitri Van den Bergh 7-4.\u00a0 In that one, Price\u2019s scoring allowed him to hit 7\/19 doubles while limiting Van den Bergh to a mere 7 out shots. \u00a0Price found himself down 1-3 – then 4 legs of 15 darts and one in 12 rocketed Price into a 5-3 lead.<\/p>\n

Clayton took down MvG 6-3, then Michael Smith 6-0, to reach his second final on the trot.\u00a0 From 2-1 down, Clayton leveled in 11 adding a pair of wins for a 4-2 lead.\u00a0 Price would reel off 4 in a row for the match as Clayton was denied doubles.<\/p>\n

The Women\u2019s Series was given a warning,\u00a0\u201cIt\u2019s up to the women, now show what you can do.\u00a0 I need to see the same demand for places in the Women\u2019s Series as there is for Q School applicants.\u201d<\/p>\n

The first stop, after the warning was in Hildesheim, Germany. \u00a0The numbers (139+) were below Tour Q School, but the tremendous quality of the women was unmatched – no doubt it was the best women\u2019s field since 2020 (only absent was Fallon Sherrock who was busy\u00a0losing Down Under).<\/p>\n

The four event-two days series signaled the arrival of 18-year-old Beau Greaves into the PDC Women’s Series.\u00a0 \u201cAGINERS\u201d had identified Greaves as ducking the PDC while racking up wins in the WDF where she resides as Numero Uno, and challengers are few and far between.<\/p>\n

The criticism was unfair as most is.\u00a0 Greaves answered those critics with a stupendous display of darting excellence equal to an exquisitely fine dinner of Kobe beef, fava beans and a fine Chianti with Jennifer Aniston.<\/p>\n

Her performance was something to be savored forever or at least until the next time she lays a Snyder on her fellow competitors over a weekend (or Jennifer returns the ODC\u2019s pleas).\u00a0 Greaves got the \u201cHat Trick + 1\u201d.<\/p>\n

“+1”?\u00a0 A coat to go with the hat.<\/p>\n

Greaves won all four events while taking home \u00a34,000 – to which a \u201crigid digit\u201d might deservedly been added to her detractors.<\/p>\n

How dominate was she?\u00a0 Greaves would go 40-0 over the two days and 100-31 in legs won.\u00a0 She saw only one lady, Lorraine Winstanley, with a match dart against her.\u00a0 In the third event, #15, in the top 16 Winstanley wanted 119.\u00a0 She got to one dart and 50 missing the center to leave 25.\u00a0 So close, but a miss.<\/p>\n

Greaves, in three of her four final wins, took advantage of Mikuru Suzuki 5-1, 5-2 and 5-3.\u00a0 The 5-3 final was a barn burner with Greaves averaging 95.46 and Suzuki 92.22.\u00a0 Of the eight legs played, 4 fell in 12 and 1 in 13.\u00a0 Down 2-1, Mikuru Suzuki tossed a 12-darter of T40, T40, T – leaving 121 which she took.<\/p>\n

Greaves took the lead (3-2) when Suzuki manufactured another 12-darter (T40, T, T80 – leaving 81 which went bye-bye) to level at 3.<\/p>\n

Going first, Greaves constructed a 12-darter, closing 56 as Suzuki sat on her favorite 121.<\/p>\n

The win came with a spectacular 12-darter that ended with a\u00a0T61\u00a0finish of t20, t17, Red Bull.\u00a0\u00a0Greaves final win came against Aileen de Graaf 5-3.<\/p>\n

Greaves in 2022 as opposed to 2020 was Ying and Yang.\u00a0 In 2020, events 1-4, she was just 15-years old. \u00a0Her best result was a top 8 where she lost to Joanne Locke 4-3.\u00a0 Lisa Ashton got her 4-2 in the top 16, Lorraine Winstanley 4-2 in top 64 and Aletta Wajer 4-0 in the round of 128.<\/p>\n

The addition of Beau Greaves and the return to form of \u201cMiracle\u201d\u00a0Mikuru Suzuki was welcomed. \u00a0There was another that deserves mention – Japan\u2019s Yukie Sakaguchi was a new face added to the mix.\u00a0 The #4 ranked player in Japan, she caught the eye of the Old Dart Coach when she came from 0-3 down against Deta Headman to win 4-3.\u00a0 He was impressed that she kept her \u201cdauber\u201d up (and the ODC\u2019s also) down 0-3.<\/p>\n

Like the Spotted Owl, Beau Greaves survived the Women\u2019s Series 2020 to thrive in 2022.<\/p>\n

There’s one more weekend, in October, for women to qualify for the Ally Pally. \u00a0Beau Greaves and Lorraine Winstanley will have to earn \u00a31,801 more than Fallon Sherrock and more than each other to qualify for the World Championships.\u00a0 Lisa Ashton has her place secured.<\/p>\n

AND FINALLY… a former English top female player posted on Facebook:\u00a0\u201cSo, I\u2019ve started me packing for our Jolly Holiday.\u00a0 Am I the only one who packs 30 pairs of nickers like I am gonna **** myself 5 times a day?\u201d<\/p>\n

With the hanging googly begging, a man hit it out of the park.\u00a0\u00a0<\/em>\u201cMy wife packs lots of knickers, but I use some for hang gliding.”\u00a0\u00a0He then posted that the couch wasn\u2019t that bad.<\/p>\n

Stay thirsty my friends.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Spotted Owl is an endangered species listed with the Bald 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Reed","author_link":"https:\/\/dartoidsworld.net\/author\/howie-reed\/"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"The Spotted Owl is an endangered species listed with the Bald Eagle...","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\/5999","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\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dartoidsworld.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5999"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dartoidsworld.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5999\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6158,"href":"https:\/\/dartoidsworld.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5999\/revisions\/6158"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dartoidsworld.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4128"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dartoidsworld.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dartoidsworld.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dartoidsworld.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5999"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dartoidsworld.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=5999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}