Seven wins, and not an easy one among them
Morris opened against Rob Cross — a world champion in the first round is the kind of draw that ends most floor days before lunch — and then went through Ricky Evans and Rob Owen to reach the last 16. There he met Wessel Nijman, the man who had already wrapped up top place on the Players Championship Order of Merit, and won 6-3.
Jermaine Wattimena went the same way, 6-3, in a quarter-final where Wattimena had the better average and lost anyway. Cristo Reyes, who threw his third nine-darter of the season eight days earlier, was beaten 7-4 in the semi-final.
| Round | Opponent | Race | Score |
|---|---|---|---|
| Round 1 | Rob Cross | Best of 11 | — |
| Last 64 | Ricky Evans | Best of 11 | — |
| Last 32 | Rob Owen | Best of 11 | — |
| Last 16 | Wessel Nijman | Best of 11 | 6–3 |
| Quarter-final | Jermaine Wattimena | Best of 11 | 6–3 |
| Semi-final | Cristo Reyes | Best of 13 | 7–4 |
| Final | Luke Humphries | Best of 15 | 8–5 |
The final: 5-3 up, pegged to 5-5, then 161
Luke Humphries arrived at the final having won the same title in the same hall twenty-four hours earlier, beating Niels Zonneveld 8-4 off a 103.77 average in Players Championship 33. His route to this one took in Ricardo Pietreczko, Justin Hood, Bradley Brooks, Mike De Decker, Michael van Gerwen in the quarter-finals and Jack Aldridge 7-5 in the semi.
Morris led 5-3. Humphries levelled at 5-5, which is the point at which these matches normally stop being competitive. Morris won the next three legs instead, closing the thirteenth with 161 — treble 20, treble 17, bullseye — in twelve darts. The published scoreboards put him at 95.76 for the match and Humphries at 92.43, well below the numbers Humphries had been posting all week.
It is not a startling average for a winner, and that is the honest shape of the day. Morris did not out-score the field. He held his throw when it was offered and punished a world champion who could not find a bed.
How a player with no Tour Card wins a PDC ranking event
Players Championships are staged for the 128 Tour Card holders, but entries routinely fall short of 128, and the shortfall is filled from a reserve list drawn largely from the Challenge Tour. Morris has spent 2026 taking those places. Our Players Championship 32 report from Den Bosch a week ago described him as a reserve-list finalist after he lost 8-4 to Chris Dobey; this time the reserve won the thing.
He is the sixth player to win a PDC ranking title without a card. The fifth was Henry Coates at Players Championship 25 in Hildesheim in July, which makes 2026 the first season to produce two of them. Coates features again at the other end of this story.
Morris had also already banked the bigger prize. Finishing inside the top three of the Challenge Tour Order of Merit carries a World Championship place, and as our Wigan finale preview set out, the two Tour Cards at the top of that list went to Joe Hunt and Derek Coulson. Morris missed the card and kept the Alexandra Palace ticket.
What the win does to Friday’s Grand Slam qualifier
Thursday’s result has an immediate consequence in the same building. The Grand Slam of Darts field is built from the top down: televised finalists, then youth and regional champions, then European Tour and Players Championship winners to fill it to 40, and only then the Tour Card Holder Qualifier on Friday 6 November, which mops up whatever is left.
That last stage is open only to Tour Card holders. Morris is not one, so he could never have entered it — but because he won an event and was not already qualified, he takes one of the event-winner places. Had the title gone to someone already in the Wolverhampton field, the place would have been pushed across to Friday. The men playing that qualifier are competing for one fewer seat than they were on Thursday morning, and they found out from a player who was not allowed to join them.
The Minehead 64 are settled, and one man missed by £250
Players Championship 34 was the last of the 34 floor events, so the Players Championship Order of Meritis now final and the field for Butlin’s Minehead on 27-29 November is fixed. Nijman tops it on £160,500 and will be the top seed. Morris is 21st on £57,250, which is the highest any player without a Tour Card has finished.
Bars are scaled against Nijman’s leading £160,500. Source: final Players Championship Order of Merit as published by DartsNews; the ranking order is independently confirmed by DartFreakz’ Minehead seeding list.
The cut is where the cruelty sits. Coates took the 64th and last place on £33,250. Wesley Plaisier finished 65th on £33,000 — £250 short, which is less than the £1,250 a single win in an opening round pays. Plaisier had been holding a qualifying position going into the final week of the season, level on money with David Sharp around 63rd and 64th, and lost it in two days.
| Rank | Player | Prize money | Minehead |
|---|---|---|---|
| 21st | Tommy Morris | £57,250 | Qualified |
| 38th | Joe Hunt | £48,000 | Qualified |
| 64th | Henry Coates | £33,250 | Qualified |
| 65th | Wesley Plaisier | £33,000 | Missed out |
| 66th | Ricardo Pietreczko | £32,500 | Missed out |
| 130th | Luke Littler | £10,500 | Missed out |
Three men in the Minehead field hold no Tour Card: Morris, Coates and Joe Hunt, who finished 38th on £48,000 and will have a card next season anyway. Against that, the list of card holders who did not make it runs to Peter Wright, Josh Rock, Nathan Aspinall, Dimitri van den Bergh and Ricardo Pietreczko, and the defending champion Luke Littler is 130th on £10,500 after entering two of the 34 events.
One other moment from Thursday deserves recording: the PDC’s own live report has Chris Dobeythrowing a nine-darter in the third round against Tom Bissell, which he won 6-1. Dobey still finished second on the season’s floor list behind Nijman.
A Players Championship pays £15,000 to the winner from a £150,000 fund, and the Players Championship Finals at Minehead carry rather more. All 64 are seeded, nobody gets a bye, and it is the last PDC tournament before Alexandra Palace — where Morris will be playing too, on a ticket he earned on a different tour entirely. Dates for the rest of the season are on the 2026 calendar.