Luke Littler made remarkable offer by Phil Taylor after young darts sensation’s request

At the peak of his powers, Phil Taylor was almost unbeatable on the oche – now the 16-tijes world champion has been sounded out about mentoring 17-year-old Luke Littler, and his terms are no-nonsense

 

Phil Taylor has offered to move in with Luke Littler – to help Britain’s most exciting teenage prodigy scale even greater heights.

 

The Power, now 64, won an astonishing 16 world titles and is unlikely to compete again at any level after hip replacement surgery and an operation using hi-tec lasers to replace the lens in his eye.

 

Now Taylor claims he has been offered the chance to mentor Luke the Nuke – and he says Littler could make so much money from darts that he could afford to retire by the time he is 25. But his terms of engagement would be as strict as a house master in a boarding school dormitory.

 

Littler has made almost £1million in prize money alone since his fairytale run to the PDC World Championship final as a 16-year-old last January. And the boy wonder’s management team have been in touch with Taylor to ask if the greatest marksman of all time can offer Littler advice to keep him at the top.

 

Speaking on talkSPORT, The Power said: “With young Luke, they have asked me if I would sit down with him and I said, ‘Of course, I will.’ But I would have to go and live with him for a few days, see what he is all about.

 

“If I spent time with him, I would see how he practises, see how he eats and exercises, how he does anything. If he’s playing on one of those PlayStations, I would give him a set time – maybe an hour a night or something – and then get ready for the next day.

 

Make sure you aren’t staying up too late and waking up in the morning and you are shattered. I have seen that so many times – players who will have a drink afterwards, they get into the drinking and then they aren’t getting to bed until 1am or 2am.

 

 

After his 7-4 defeat by Luke Humphries in a classic World Championship final at Ally Pally nine months ago, Littler has gone on to win the Premier League – the second richest tournament in darts – as well as tournaments in Bahrain, Austria, Belgium and Poland

 

Taylor, meanwhile, has withdrawn from next month’s World Seniors Masters in Sunderland, which was due to be his farewell competitive tournament appearance, and he says the curtain has now come down on his career.

 

He revealed: “I’m retired now. Properly retired. I will do a little bit of personal appearances, some meet-and-greets, signing autographs, that sort of thing. But my eyes started going a few years ago, so I had a lens replacement. Then my hips went