If the 2026 Premier League Darts season gets a defining statistic, it will be this: Luke Littler has hit five of the eight 170 "Big Fish" checkouts recorded across the opening eleven nights, a finishing rate so absurd the PDC ran out of ways to describe it.
"Utterly, utterly ridiculous from Luke Littler," the circuit's broadcast team posted after the teenager stitched together back-to-back 170 checkouts in his Night 8 final against Michael van Gerwen in Berlin. "The king of the 170," they added. "He just LOVES that checkout."
The 170 — treble 20, treble 20, bullseye — is the highest score that can be taken out in a single visit to the board. Most professionals spend a career chasing one; Littler has hit five since late February.
His roll started on Night 5, where he took out a 170 against Gerwyn Price in the semi-finals and followed it up in the final against Jonny Clayton. On Night 7 he nailed another, this one against van Gerwen after narrowly missing an earlier attempt in the same match. Then came Berlin.
In the Night 8 final on 26 March, Littler hit consecutive 170 checkouts against van Gerwen, first in the sixth leg to move 4-2 up and then in the eighth to give himself darts for the match. He wrapped up a 6-4 win and a third nightly victory of the season. The second 170 in particular drew gasps from the Mercedes-Benz Arena crowd and lit up social media, with van Gerwen applauding his 19-year-old opponent on stage.
The rest of the field has shared the remaining three big-fish finishes sparingly. Van Gerwen hit one himself on Night 7 against Littler. Price bagged another on Night 9. And on Night 11 in Rotterdam, Jonny Clayton produced one of his own in a 6-2 semi-final win over van Gerwen before going on to beat Littler in the final.
The finishing statistic underscores just how thoroughly Littler has reshaped the Premier League's scoring economy. Along with a £10,000 cheque and five league points per nightly win, 2026 offers players a set of custom 18-carat gold darts worth £30,000 for any nine-darter — but it is the 170 chart, not the nine-dart chart, that Littler has colonised.
Even with Clayton currently sitting atop the table after 11 nights, Littler remains the tournament's most feared closer whenever a leg gets to three figures on the left-hand side of the board. If Sheffield and The O2 come down to finishing, the teenager from St Helens has already done more Big Fish damage than anyone in Premier League history over a single stretch.
With five league nights remaining, the only question left to answer is whether anyone else in the field can find a second 170 of their own. Littler, at present, is finding his at will.