Luke Littler continues to dominate the world of darts after successfully retaining the UK Open title in Butlin’s Minehead on Sunday night. The world number one saw off the challenge of James Wade 11-7 in the final to secure the 12th major title of his career, placing him outright third on the all-time PDC major roll of honour.

At just 19 years of age, ‘The Nuke’ currently holds seven of the 10 PDC major titles, with the ranked European Championship and unranked Premier League and World Series of Darts Finals the only ones missing from his grasp. Can ‘The Nuke’ etch his name into the darting record books and hold all of the sport’s premier trophies at the same time?

Luke Littler is now the reigning champion of seven PDC major titles, but in terms of completing a clean sweep and being the holder of all 10 at the same time, he is halfway there. His current winning run started with the Grand Slam of Darts and Players Championship Finals titles at the back end of last year, followed by the World Championship, World Masters and UK Open successes this term.

Littler’s title defence in the Grand Slam in November moved the teenager to the summit of the PDC world rankings for the first time, ending Luke Humphries’ near two-year reign at the top. ‘The Nuke’ started his 2026 in style by retaining the Sid Waddell Trophy on January 3 with a 7-1 thumping of Gian van Veen in the final. ‘The Nuke’ then ticked off another major on his list by claiming the World Masters crown at the start of last month, with yesterday’s UK Open triumph extending his current winning run in major ranking tournaments to 31 matches and five titles.

To be the holder of all the 10 PDC majors at the same time, Luke Littler will need to win the Premier League, World Matchplay, World Series of Darts Finals, World Grand Prix and European Championship this year. ‘The Nuke’ currently sits third in the Premier League table, with his night win in Cardiff last week propelling him into the play-off spots for the first time this season. Littler has finished top of the Premier League in his previous two campaigns, but to be crowned the champion he will need to win the play-offs, which are held at The O2, in London, on May 28.

If ‘The Nuke’ can successfully reclaim the Premier League this spring, attention will turn to the World Matchplay. The teenage superstar added the Phil Taylor Trophy to his CV last summer, beating former champion James Wade 18-13 in the final at the Winter Gardens. The 2026 World Matchplay runs from July 18-26.

The last three majors Littler would then need to win to hold all 10 titles are the World Series of Darts Finals (September 17-20), World Grand Prix (September 22-28) and European Championship (October 22-25). ‘The Nuke’ won the World Series finale in 2024 and picked up the double-start World Grand Prix crown last year, with the European Championship now the only PDC major he has yet to get his hands on.

In the PDC era of darts, only two players have held all of the major ranking titles at the same time. The legendary Phil Taylor held a stranglehold over the World Championship, World Matchplay and World Grand Prix titles for most of the late 1990s and early 2000s. In 2000 he won all three titles in the same calendar year for the first time, before two years later repeating the feat and adding the ranked Las Vegas Desert Classic to hold all four major titles in 2002.

As more and more major tournaments were added to the calendar in the noughties, ‘The Power’ continued to rack up the titles, finishing with over 70 PDC major trophies to his name by the end of his professional career. The closest Taylor came to another ‘clean sweep’ was in 2009 when he won the World Championship, Players Championship Finals, UK Open, Las Vegas Desert Classic, World Matchplay, World Grand Prix and European Championship, and at that point held all seven ranked major titles, along with the then unranked Grand Slam of Darts. However, Taylor fell just short of completing the set in one calendar year, losing out in the semi-finals of the Premier League play-offs to Mervyn King that year.

Michael van Gerwen is the only other player in the PDC era to have held all of the active major ranking titles at the same time. The Dutchman’s period of domination came between 2014 and 2017 when he lifted an astonishing 26 major trophies in four years.

In the 2016-17 season, van Gerwen completed the ‘clean sweep’ of ranked majors, claiming the UK Open, World Matchplay, World Grand Prix, European Championship, Grand Slam of Darts, Players Championship Finals and World Championship. In that same campaign, ‘Mighty Mike’ also won the Masters, Premier League and World Series of Darts Finals, but finished one off a perfect 11/11, losing to Phil Taylor in the final of the now defunct Champions League of Darts.

Shortly after going back-to-back at the UK Open on Sunday night, Luke Littler was asked in his post-match press conference about the possibility of a clean sweep of the PDC’s major titles this year. He replied: “That’s obviously the main aim. Even when I came off from my semi-final (against Josh Rock yesterday), I was straight on Instagram and TikTok, having a scroll and seeing how many consecutive (major) semi-finals it has been. I know my semi-finals record (P16 W16) is good and my finals record (P16 W12 L4) is there as well.

“I am always on social media and I think it was a day or two before I travelled down (to Minehead) I saw the last person to go back-to-back here (at the UK Open) was Michael (van Gerwen) 10 years ago. It was Gary Anderson at the Worlds. I took it game by game and got the job done. To win the (UK Open) trophy means a lot and hopefully I can kick on and get even better.”

Since becoming PDC world champion for the first time in January 2025, Luke Littler has been almost unbeatable in major ranking events. His match record makes for impressive reading: P52 W50 L2 and eight out of 10 major ranking titles won. Those two defeats came last year, with ‘The Nuke’ averaging 108.50 in a 4-2 defeat to Jonny Clayton in the World Masters quarter-finals, before losing 10-7 to James Wade in the European Championship last 16 with a 97 average.

That defeat to Wade in Dortmund on October 25 last year was the last time Littler has lost in a major ranking event. The teenager has embarked on a 31-match winning streak since then, winning five major ranking titles, including the Grand Slam of Darts, that saw him claim the number one ranking, and a second World Championship crown in January.

Littler himself admitted he was not at his best in Minehead this past weekend. The numbers back that up with his first two match averages, 94.81 and 93.68, his lowest two averages in straight knockout matches in a PDC major ranked event since December 2023 - when he averaged 92.65 against Andrew Gilding in the second round of his World Championship debut campaign. Despite a below-par start to the weekend, ‘The Nuke’ upped his game with a quartet of 100+ averages to see off Gary Anderson, Danny Noppert, Josh Rock and Wade to win the UK Open for a second time.

The pursuit of the clean sweep is sure to bring more challenges over the coming months, with the world’s elite players facing off with Littler in the Premier League every Thursday for the next three months. With Littler needing to go perfect for the next five majors, there is plenty more work to do if the 19-year-old is to achieve the greatest clean sweep in the history of the modern game. It is now up to the rest of the field to stop Luke from becoming the invincible player in darts.

Pictures: PDC