Wayne Mardle is arguably one of the most talented darts players to never win a World Championship.
Hawaii 501 appeared in four World Championship semi-finals and reached the final of the World Matchplay in 2003, but the 51-year-old never captured a PDC premier tournament.
Wayne Mardle quit the sport at the relatively young age of 38 and the commentator has revealed why he left the game when he did.
Wayne Mardle ‘quite unhappy’ at the end of his career
There were various reasons why he decided to leave the game, but ultimately it wasn’t making him happy.
Talking on his Club 180 podcast, Mardle revealed: “I hated the traveling I’d been doing it since the age of 19 and it just got to the point of I didn’t want to do it anymore.
“Once you start not liking your job and you become rubbish at it, the want to do it just leaves you. To be honest I was honestly on a downhill slide anyway so my belief had gone.
“I think my character was being kind of compromised and I was turning into someone kind of quite unhappy.
“That really wasn’t me so I gave up at the age of 38.”
After quitting the sport, Mardle has become one of the most beloved commentators in the game. His Sky Sports punditry has gone down in folklore and his love for the game is contagious.
Darts is skewing younger and younger
Although darts have often been perceived as an old person’s sport, the game is becoming younger and younger.
Only Gerwyn Price, Dave Chisnall, Jonny Clayton from the PDC top 10 are older than Mardle was when he retired and the emergence of Luke Humphries and Luke Littler has only skewed the averages lower.
Although there are a few older players on the tour, like Steve Beaton and Mervyn King, darts is becoming a young person’s sport and Mardle would have likely seen his opportunities narrow anyway.