Darts: Terry Temple fails to win place on PDC tour (From Gazette & Herald)

Darts: Terry Temple fails to win place on PDC tour

3:13pm Wednesday 23rd January 2013 in Sport

WHITWELL-ON-THE-HILL’S Terry Temple has failed to win a place on the 2013 PDC tour by the narrowest of margins.

Temple missed out on qualifying for the prestigious darts circuit when, after progressing through five rounds on the fourth and final day of the Q School at Wigan, he was beaten 6-3 by Hong Kong’s Royden Lam in a contest to decide who would earn their card.

Players had to battle through six or sometimes seven rounds of games, if they were drawn out at the preliminary stage, to claim one of four PDC tour places up for grabs each day.

Nine more spots were available, however, to the top nine players on the Order of Merit, which was based on results accumulated over the four days of competition, and further anguish was to follow for Temple when he learned he had finished a single point short of qualification via that method.

Prior to his defeat against Lam, world number 71 Temple had seen off the earlier challenges of David Patterson (6-0), Jamie Gemmell (6-3), Kevin Thomas (6-5), Harry Miles (6-2) and Jon Jukes (6-0).

Disappointing displays during the first three days had heaped the pressure on, however, as Temple suffered first and preliminary round losses either side of a run to the third round on day two.

Temple will now be ineligible for this year’s PDC Players Championship events but can compete in all eight UK Open qualifiers, as well as the World Championship PDPA Qualifier in November.