The Epitome Of Excellence In St. Louis: A Master Plumber By Day And A Darts Champion By Night

The darts player who holds the title of best in St. Louis picked up his first set of darts in 2006, making him one of the more recent converts to the sport. He was 30 years old at the time, and he did it because a relative had a team in a league that needed a fourth player.
 

Eric Gregory stated, "Since then, I haven't been able to put them down."
 

Since then, Gregory, now 44 years old and hailing from South St. Louis, has competed in darts tournaments all over the United States and the world, eventually earning a spot in the Winmau World Masters competition to be held in London in 2019. In 2015, he triumphed in Las Vegas at the National Dart Association soft tip world championship and took home the title. You can most likely find him somewhere with a dart in his hand on any of the other six nights of the week, whether it be in a local league during the week or in a tournament on the weekends.
 

During the day, you can find him working as a plumber near me for his family's business, which was started by his grandfather and has been passed down through the generations to his father and now to him. His basement serves as the location of the company's office. Also, his dartboard is there, but Gregory points out that the ceiling in that room is quite low, and as a result, the top of the dartboard is very close to the ceiling. This makes the room less than ideal for practise. However, he continues to throw there on a daily basis due to the fact that he genuinely enjoys playing darts.
 

According to Dave Madison, who serves as president of the Missouri Valley Darting Organization, "He plays in local leagues every night of the week." When we play on Monday nights, he's on my side.
 

At least in the United States of America, darts is not a sport that can provide a living for many people, and Gregory is not an exception. He is very skilled at what he can do when holding a dart in his hand, but that skill alone won't put food on the table the way that his skill when holding a pipe wrench will. Now we see him, the Gregory who will run Dependable Plumbing and Sewer Cleaning in the third generation of the family.
 

During the week, Gregory will go out on calls, come back to his house for lunch and to play darts in his basement for forty-five minutes, and then head back out to continue making service calls for the rest of the day. And during the night, you can find him at any location where someone is throwing darts. (His wife Adrienne is also a player, so there is no reason to believe that he is leaving her behind at home.)
 

"When I was younger, I tried my hand at basketball and baseball," he said. You can't accuse me of being out of shape because I'm still in pretty good physical condition. I'm just trying to be competitive without expending an excessive amount of effort here. That is the most important point. It wasn't something that just came to me effortlessly. I had what appeared to be a natural ability and talent for it, and within four or five weeks of beginning to play, I was already shooting better than the majority of the other players in the league. They encouraged me to continue doing it, and as a result, I am now travelling all over the country, and I went abroad in the fall. That is something I never would have guessed. As I progressed in my game, I became increasingly driven to achieve victory.
 

However, he will be unable to leave his day job as a result of this. It's possible that the very best dart players can make a living off of the game alone in the United Kingdom, where darts is such a huge sport (nine of the top 10 players in the world in terms of money earned right now are from the UK). Nevertheless, not in this nation. Although there are tournaments from time to time that offer substantial prize pools, the vast majority of competitions do not.
 

'Like rock stars'
 

Gregory was able to get a glimpse of life in the other half of the world after he qualified for the United States team that travelled to the United Kingdom the year before.
 

According to Gregory, "the player who is ranked number one in the world earns less than two million pounds ($2.42 million) annually just from prize money." They're on the same level as rock stars. If you're not a local dart player, no one will recognise you as the best player in this place. There, you'll find that you're hurried.
 

The greatest victory of Gregory's career came in 2015 at an event that took place in Las Vegas. In the championship match, he competed against Jeremiah Miller, who is considered to be one of the best players in the world in the game of 501. In this game, the objective is to reduce points until you reach exactly zero, and in order to win, you must hit a double (the narrow ring at the top edge of the dartboard, closest to the numbers) on your final dart.
 

In order for Gregory to win, he needed to score exactly 146 points with his last three darts, and if he failed to do so, Miller only needed to score 24 points when it was his turn. Gregory shot a triple 19, another triple 19, and then a double 16 to complete the "whole kit and caboodle," as he put it. The triple is the narrow band that is closer to the centre of the target. That amounted to nine years of me trying to demonstrate my worth. That made me feel a lot of things. If I don't hit it, and I might (hit it) two out of ten times, or three out of ten at best, he's going to hit 24 almost every time. If I hit it, I might (hit it) two out of ten times. It was a situation that required action or death. That particular day, I felt like I was being aided by something.
 

"That jolted me into action. Now, I can walk into a tournament anywhere in the world, whether it be in Nashville or out in California, and all of the best players will recognise my name. That is pretty cool to know. When I first started going to these, they did not say a word at any point during the entire time. Now I'm getting questions from some of the best about how I'm doing.
 

In spite of this, the economics of darts are such that in order for Gregory to attend certain tournaments, he carpools with another top local player named Brad Oxendine and shares a hotel room with him in order to keep the costs to a minimum.
 

"Some tournaments are structured where you need to win several events on a weekend to come out ahead," said Gregory, who estimates that the most money he has ever won in a single year is approximately $16,000. Gregory has won a total of approximately $16,000 over the course of his career. "Winning one or doing well in several will sometimes pay for my weekend, the travel, and expenses, as well as provide food for my wife. When I do, I end up flushing a few hundred dollars down the drain. It's similar to having a meaningful pastime."
 

In 2018, Gregory was victorious in a significant competition when he took first place at the Blueberry Hill Open, a major regional tournament that was held at Blueberry Hill in University City.
 

"It meant a lot to me that my picture was able to be displayed on the wall at Blueberry Hill," he said.
 

This victory was especially significant for him given that he had been struggling since the passing of his father, Dickie, in 2016.

He stated, "I was right in the sweet spot of my expertise." I had the impression that I was the best player in St. Louis and my confidence was beginning to grow as a result. My heart was shattered for a little while after he passed away. I had no idea what direction this was going to take. I had every intention of giving up. A few of my patrons have really come through for me. I gradually began to make my way back, and now I'm beginning to get the desire I've been missing. He would want me to continue playing if he saw me.

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