Former Players Champion and current darts pundit Paul Nicholson analyses the recent resurgence of Gerwyn Price...
I know a lot of people get carried away with the line “who is the best player in the world right now?”
I am not going to pipe up and say that Gerwyn Price is the answer to that question, because the rankings do not reflect that, especially with world number on Michael Smith winning his sixth European Tour event last weekend in Munich, beating Price in the last 16.
However, we have seen a hot spell from 'The Iceman' over the last couple of months. Why is that?
It has been spoken about that he has employed a new gluten-free diet lately, and you may be critical in saying that it couldn’t possibly have anything to do with darts. Poppycock! Finding things that work is the key to ideal preparation.
If a gluten-free diet gives him more energy and better gut health, what is not to like? Call me crazy, but since this has come about, he is winning more regularly than most seasons and he looks like he could go again as soon as a tournament is over. how many players can you say that about in modern-day slogs?
Only two players in European Tour history have won three straight events and Price is one of them, the other you do not even need me to tell you is Michael van Gerwen.
Had Price won in Munich this weekend, he would’ve been the second to do three straight in a calendar season. He is already the second most successful Euro Tour player ever, and he wasn’t even around when it started in 2012.
This is a player who over the last nine years has looked under every rock for an advantage. I know that he is not the most universally popular player with the darting masses, but if you look at his career with an open mind and a fresh outlook, you cannot refuse to respect his desire, approach and ability to rebound when things get negative.
A lot was made of the World Championship ear defenders, but what I saw was courageous. He was not shy to try something that would send the sporting world into a spiral.
He genuinely doesn’t care what anyone thinks when it comes to striving for success and I cannot tell you how much that annoys some players.
What he really cares about is being the best he can be at everything he does, and we can all learn from that. His circle is small when he goes to events. He doesn’t even have a high profile manager or agent who follows him around the world. The Iceman brand is a family business.
After that infamous defeat to Gabriel Clemens, there were a few who thought that maybe he could walk from the sport, including me. Live on talkSPORT 2, I said “If things don’t change for him, he could easily walk and not look back.” I said that hand-on-heart, but hoping that he would not.
The response since then has been nothing short of mind-boggling. Not only has his form come to the top, but his popularity has been starting to change too.
At the start of the year in the Premier league, playing in Cardiff always helps his spirits as he only gets one home game a season, but then you look at some other venues and he is not getting jeered as much because he is playing so well that you cannot boo brilliance.
Gerwyn has always said that if you do not whistle and do not shout negatively, the players will deliver a standard that you will salivate over. He is not wrong.
I remember an event in Budapest in 2021, where he was booed so loudly in the first round that he couldn’t hear himself think.
He still beat Richard Veenstra, but you worried at that point that he could get so ticked off he might even walk off stage.
Fast-forward one single day and when he went into the semi-finals against Luke Humphries, he went berserk for about 75 minutes, and not a boo was heard because he was playing at a standard that only legends will ever be able to achieve.
Couple that ability, the mental fortitude, the know-how and the ability to find the small things that give him an edge over others, we are talking about a player who has done more than most in PDC history, and he is still maybe trying to win some people over.
In an age where we have an athletic-looking player who could easily grace the cover of Men's Health, we need to embrace the possibility that his style of play, his approach to preparation and ability to evolve with varying challenges is showing the next crop of players off the conveyor how it is done.
One last thing about GP, and it is that he does have perceivable weaknesses in this sport. You hear many talk about his not making the Play-Offs in the Premier League in four attempts, but look at his chances this time around. If he doesn’t make the final four this time I will be flabbergasted.
He does evolve, he does learn and the proof of this is his dislike for double start darts when he came to the fore in the sport. He still found a way to get to back-to-back Grand Prix finals and win one of them.
The biggest word that I associate with Price is evolution. He evolves each and every season because that is how he works at his best. He isn’t stubborn. This sport could learn from that approach, I could’ve learned a lot from him about my own career had he come before my peak years.
Plus, after the first time he played me in 2014, I walked back to my table and asked Mervyn King “Who on earth was that?!"
We all know who he is now, and we are very fortunate to have him in this sport.
His evolution will continue, his smile permeates the camera lens more these days, and he has the game to bring 2023 to its knees if his desire to succeed continues.