Ryan Murray
Ryan Murray
DATE OF BIRTH | August 1987 |
NICKNAME | Muzz Lightyear |
DART RANGE COMING SOON |
Despite being only 33 years of age, Murray first came to light in the PDC when playing in the 2010 UK Open. At the time, Murray was with the BDO and contested their World Championship Qualifiers in the same year. As with many of the leading young darts players, it did not take long for Murray to make the switch to the PDC and he made his debut on the Challenge Tour in 2013.
Fast forward to 2017 and Murray made an appearance in the PDC World Championship Qualifiers and has since won his PDC Tour Card.
2020 was an encouraging year for Murray in terms of major tournaments and the Scot reached the last 32 of the Players Championship Finals. This is one of the marquee events on the PDC calendar and Murray recorded a tremendous 6-4 victory over Stephen Bunting. It was one of the biggest moments of his career to date as Murray reached the second round of the competition, only to lose to an inspired Damon Heta, who recorded close to a 100 average to win 6-5.
Murray also qualified for the 2021 PDC World Darts Championship and defeated Lourence Ilagan in the first round. That led to a daunting meeting with Michael van Gerwen and Murray gave a fantastic account of himself, recording a 95.14 average. Keeping pace with the Dutchman is tough but Murray had a dart to take the match to a deciding set before losing 3-1. Speaking after the match, Van Gerwen said, “Ryan played a great performance for his first time in the tournament. I couldn't give him a chance because the way he was playing he would've taken it.”
The Shot team is excited to add him to our pro player team and look forward to creating a dart that will enhance his performance.
Our design team is currently working with him on the design and prototype of this new dart, more on that soon!
Walk on Song: Mann Ft 50 cent - Buzzing
Hometown: Edinburgh, Scotland
When did you start playing darts? How did you get into darts?
I started playing darts around 17 years old on Thursday night with a few friends at a friends house. We would play a knockout competition everything £1 entry. There would be around 14 of us on a good night after a year one of my mates told me to come to play on a Friday night for a local team called Liberton Rugby Club. We played around 20 teams in the league every Friday, home and away, sometimes there would be the league singles or the pairs triples competitions, and I played in them all.
There was a guy there Kenny Munro who saw I was improving each week, and he told me to join a better team. Better players will boost me on, he said. I did, and my game improved, some of the guys on this team were the top boys in Scotland. They told me about local competitions county darts and so on, so I started attending local comps and travelling to competition all over the UK.
I just kept on playing and practicing and finally decided it was time to give the PDC a go and try my luck to become a professional darts player. After 6 or 7 years, I finally got there and now in my second year of becoming a professional darts player and got myself up to 68th in the world and reached European finals in Germany, a player championship final spot. The main achievement so far is the worlds, losing out 2nd round I have enjoyed my first year and the second year has made me more determined to do well.
Favourite Practice Routine - when I practice it's usually 3-4 hours. hours I start off with warm-up throwing for 20-30 mins then go into some checkouts for an hour or so. After that I'll play the computer for a couple of hours at a high standard- well let's say the computer never misses lol.
I do different games half it checks scoring ton plus scores until I score 21 points just anything that keeps my arm going and keep me interested.
Career Highlights:
- PDC World Championship 2021 - Last 64
- Players Championship Finals 2020 -Last 32
- Players Championship Finals Winter Series 2020 -Last 16