Mid World Series lull

Didn't see much point in commenting on van Gerwen's return to form, I suppose the key thing was Heta locking up a seeding for the World Series finals, pretty certain he can't be caught now, so will be interesting to see how he does in the finals.

Latest installment of "if I ran the PDC":

5) We have a one day Challenge Tour vs Development Tour tour card faceoff for a tour card

This goes back a bit to the old Championship League thing, whereby they had a bunch of games just for the sake of plying bookmakers with cheap content and markets. Every tournament they have doesn't need to be in a big venue, so why don't they try something to fill the pre-World Championship void and have a one day event, similar format to the final day of the European Tour, with the winner of it gaining a tour card at the end of it. Would be cheap to produce, give a lot of developing players exposure, and there's plenty on the line for the competitors. Work it so that if someone qualifies through both routes, they get a bye straight to the quarters. Seed by straight cash otherwise, they have the same number of events and prize fund so it's the fairest way, tour card holders through the Development Tour are ineligible to play. So, if we look at the Challenge Tour, we have:

3 Stephen Burton £5,200
4 Boris Koltsov £4,650
5 Callan Rydz £4,200
6 Andy Jenkins £4,200
7 Ritchie Edhouse £3,800
8 Patrick Lynskey £3,500
9 Cody Harris £3,450
10 Berry van Peer £3,250

In the Development Tour, we have:

3 Luke Humphries £6,100
4 Ryan Meikle £5,450
5 Shane McGuirk £4,800
6 Nathan Rafferty £4,350
7 Callan Rydz £4,150
8 Jeffrey De Zwaan £3,950
9 Ciaran Teehan £3,800
10 Keane Barry £3,600
11 Bradley Brooks £2,950
12 Andrew Davidson £2,850
13 Corey Cadby £2,800
14 Greg Ritchie £2,650
15 William Borland £2,500

That'd give us a draw of:

Callan Rydz vs Bye
Ciaran Teehan v Keane Barry
Nathan Rafferty v Berry van Peer
Boris Koltsov v Andrew Davidson
Stephen Burton v William Borland
Ritchie Edhouse v Patrick Lynskey
Shane McGuirk v Greg Ritchie
Andy Jenkins v Cody Harris

I personally think that'd be a pretty interesting format, but I am quite the darts nerd who'd watch close to anything. Fun to note that Rafferty is really close to the top 10 in the Challenge Tour, which'd have given him a first round bye as well.

BDO World Trophy draw has given us some interesting ties - Hamilton vs Smith-Neale and McKinstry vs Kenny could be good, Jim Williams vs Wes Newton might not be too bad if Newton's got a bit back towards peak form, but I think the highlights are Harms against Hogan and Parletti against Kleermaker. Ladies' event isn't bad either. Hopefully we should get some good data, although the first couple of rounds are a bit on the short side.