The 2018 New Forest Masters

Posted: 29.10.18 in Darts Performance Centre Blog category

We look back on a great weekend at the Masters in New Milton!

On Saturday we hosted our 6^th New Forest Masters. This year we did not run our usual coaching event on the night before the tournament although we did visit one of our favourite Masters haunts, the House Martin restaurant and then on to a Scott Mitchell exhibition at a local golf club. A relaxing start to our hectic weekend.

We kicked off the Masters with a money in – money out pairs competition. The very strong team of Paul Hogan and Chas Barstow prevailed over Andy Jenkins and Mike Gillet.

We then moved on to the Ladies' and Men’s singles. The ladies comp was won by ace Chalker and daughter of a very well-known local player, “Cottie”, Shannon Littlecott. She beat another good friend of the DPC, Kate Bynorth in the final. Well done Shannon!

In the Men’s comp Paul Hogan had a relatively clear run through to the final bar a good skirmish against Andy Jenkins in the semi-final. In arguably the tougher half of the draw, PDC Tour Card holder Aaron Monk won through to take on Hogan.

The final was excellent. Paul Hogan won it 3:1 with a 99.06 average but Aaron pushed him all the way.

A small consolation for Monk was his triumph on making the highest break in our “sideshow” of the Bulls snooker board. Most were determined just to beat their best break of 1 but Aaron hit a 49 followed by a 40 from Mike Gillet and two 36 breaks from Andy Jenkins.

The DPC Darts Shop mobile version was in attendance too and they had a good day. The Performance Darts sold well and we got some more rave reviews on our Optimum range in particular.

Tournaments like this don’t run themselves and so a huge thanks to all the team who helped out. Memorial staff Andy and Mel worked wonders behind the bar and overcame some challenging episodes which were no fault of theirs!

Paul Webb, minus Sue, as she was dog sitting, single handedly kept the bar running and the tournament. Charlie Cousens got stuck in too and Charlie F and Andy helped us set up on the Friday. Angela packed the shop and ran it and she did a fantastic job.

Ringwood Brewery were once again our sponsors and thanks to them for their support, it is really appreciated!

Finally a huge thanks to our main man Chris Skinner. It is no exaggeration that this competition would not happen without him. He ran a pairs, 2 singles and a plate without a hiccup and took the stands back to their storage unit at the end! And he kept smiling at the pineapple jokes!

Of course, the tournament would be nothing without the players. It was great to see so many local players taking part. It is always very special too when players travel to come along. Even though Del couldn’t make it from Canada this year thanks to the Surrey crew for attending, Cat and Chris and of course the last man standing of our regular gang of players from over the years Double Top Dave. We really appreciate all the effort everyone made to attend and support us.

We had a couple of fantastic nights out on the Friday and in particular Saturday to unwind after all our collective efforts.  It was a blessed relief too that as Jason Cox was absent without leave this year that Dave managed to find another dancing partner!

Watch this space for news of the next one and make sure you come along on the night out next time!