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It’s nearly 30 years since Larry ‘The Eagle’ Butler made history by becoming the first American to win a PDC darts major.

Three decades have passed since Butler prevailed in the World Matchplay, and there’s yet to be any more major glory for players from the United States to celebrate.

There’s a good reason for that – chances for Americans to take on the best that the PDC has to offer are generally slim on the ground, but the Grand Slam of Darts and the World Championship are both available to tungsten titans from the U.S and in 2023 two debutants from these shores will be looking to take full advantage.

Stowe’s Away

When you look at the darts odds supplied by a sportsbook, you realize the size of the task facing American players in winning a major.

The PDC World Championship betting shows former world titlists like Michael van Gerwen (+350), Gerwyn Price (+450) and Michael Smith (+650) as the favorites, with major winners like Luke Humphries, Peter Wright and Gary Anderson also in the hunt alongside the strongest field of players imaginable.

For Stowe Buntz, just qualifying for the World Championships has been an achievement in itself. But when you’ve had the year he’s had, there’s no doubt about it: he isn’t just heading to London to make up the numbers.

Buntz won the CDC Continental Cup earlier this year to book his spot not only at the Worlds but also at the Grand Slam of Darts, the November major that will be his debut in such a prestigious event on UK soil.

Stowe Buntz dominates to win the 2023 CDC Continental Cup 🏆

Read in full now 💻👇🏻https://t.co/tCpqFn4bYd

— Online Darts (@OfficialOLDarts) October 22, 2023

The number two seed at the Continental Cup, Buntz averaged a mammoth 104.15 in the first round against Jake Macmillan, before comfortable victories in the quarter-finals – over Butler, no less – and semis set up a final date against Jason Brandon. Buntz went 3-0 up before his opponent pulled it back to 3-3, and a nip-and-tuck game thereafter was settled by a nerveless 15-dart leg to complete an 8-6 victory. He and his fellow American, Alex Spellman, can now look forward to a debut on one of the most vaunted stages in darts – London’s Alexandra Palace – this December. An Underdog Story A run to the quarter-finals by Butler in 1996 is the best that an American has fared at the PDC World Championships. But a number of his compatriots have taken scalps in the most prestigious darts tournament of them all, with Danny Baggish chief among them. In three trips to ‘Ally Pally’, the 40-year-old – known as ‘The Gambler’ after his penchant for trips to Las Vegas and New Jersey – has won at least one game at each edition. In 2020, he defeated Andy Boulton in the opening round before taking a set off future World Matchplay winner Nathan Aspinall in the second, and a year later he dumped Damon Heta and former world champion Adrian Lewis out of the competition. To complete the hat-trick, in 2023 Baggish downed the Canadian, Matt Campbell, in the opening round before losing out to Mervyn King in the second.

🎥 ICYMI: Here’s the moment Darin Young brought Raymond van Barneveld’s final tournament campaign to an abrupt end... pic.twitter.com/Q44BNttVTo

— Live Darts (@livedarts) December 15, 2019

The prize of the biggest scalp taken by an American at the Worlds belongs to Darin Young, who shocked everyone – and perhaps even himself – when he defeated five-time world champion Raymond van Barneveld in the first round back in 2020. Who knows, maybe Buntz or Spellman can add their names to the list of American conquerors at the World Championships in December?