Far from making up for lost time, Shaun McDonald is just relishing his second chance at a career in darts.
Aberdonian McDonald has enjoyed a whirlwind return to the sport this year after a decade away from the oche.
He was a prodigious player in his youth, winning the 2002 World Youth Masters and becoming a three-time Scottish under-18 champion. He was a team-mate of World Cup of Darts champion John Henderson on the Aberdeen pub circuit, playing for Wagleys and the Masada, as well as competing at the UK Open in 2006 and 2007.
McDonald put down the darts to focus on other aspirations in his life, qualifying as a chartered account and starting a family. However, when lockdown came around last year, it spurred him into giving the game another try. And how.
The 36-year-old came second in the Challenge Tour – the secondary tour of the Professional Darts Corporation – rankings and narrowly missed out on a place at the World Championships at Alexandra Palace, with Jim Williams earning a mere £100 more prize money to earn a spot.
However, McDonald’s 2021 performances, which included winning the Irish Classic in Killarney last month and a Challenge Tour event in Milton Keynes, have catapulted him back towards the main stage.
“After not playing at all for 10 years, not even in the pub scene, to have this as a first year back has been pretty good,” he said.
“The desire has never gone away. My life went off in a different direction; I wasn’t doing as well as I was wanting to when I was younger and it got to the point where I was thinking about plan B.
“I did five years studying and became a chartered accountant, then my wife and I started a family. I’ve always watched it on TV and had a board up, having a throw now and then.
“Lockdown hit and my oldest boy got into it a little bit. We started playing and I was practising more.
“I played in an online league and started getting sharper. Q School was coming up and I thought ‘why not?’. I got to the final stage and, if I’d won a tour card back, it probably would have been too early.
“But we’ll be back down in the middle of January for that and I’m in the final stage of that, after coming second in the Challenge Tour.”
Q School is not a simple process. It is a week-long event held behind-closed-doors, where players at different stages of their careers can put themselves forward.
There will be players on their way up, coming off the Challenge and Development tours, those who have just lost their tour card after the World Championships and amateur players who fancy going for the experience.
McDonald was due to compete at the World Darts Federation – formerly BDO – World Championships at the Lakeside Country Club at the start of January. As he is not yet a tour-card holder, he is able to compete in both PDC and WDF events.
However, owing to the increasing uncertainty around the pandemic, organisers made the decision to postpone the WDF tournament until April. McDonald will take his place in the first round against Dave Parletti, unless he comes through Q School in January.
That would enable him to step up from the Challenge Tour circuit and become one of the 128 tour card-holders eligible to compete in the Players Championship and the UK Open qualifiers.
“You could run into an extremely tough first-round match (at Q School), or you could get a draw where you’re not really tested until your third or fourth match,” said McDonald.
“There’ll be about 600 people there in that first session. It’ll be a minefield, so to be through to the serious bit straight away is good.
“I’m now in the strange position where I could play myself out of Lakeside.
“If you’ve got a professional tour card in the PDC you can’t play at Lakeside, so that’d be strange after qualifying on the small number of events I’d played. I’d be a victim of my own success.”
He is also hopeful of getting a slot at the UK Open in March, by virtue of his Challenge Tour displays and, while he may not be at Ally Pally, he still has a vested interest in the tournament.
McDonald has been practising with Alan Soutar, the Arbroath arrowsmith who beat Diogo Portela in the first round on Sunday, to help his preparations.
Final practice session before heading to London, tomorrow. @Shaunymac04 pic.twitter.com/h5WaTxT8LF
— Alan Soutar (@soots180) December 15, 2021
“We’ve been practising a wee while. I signed with the same management group as him in February-March time. He’s an hour-and-a-half down the road and we’ve done a few now, either down there or up here.
“It’s always good to get a few hours practise with someone at his level.”
McDonald feels he has got the right balance at the moment between darts and his work.
He is finance director at Xeretec and having a full-time job helps him retain the enjoyment he gets from treating darts as a hobby.
There will be no grand aims for 2022, but he has solid foundations to make it another memorable year.
He said: “I just want to keep improving. That was my target this season and it’s my target next season. I’ve got a really busy job, so I can’t define what my season is going to look like.
“If something comes up at work, darts will take a back seat. But I just need to keep improving – whether I win a tour card or not, that will have to be the plan.
“I don’t just want to be a player that hovers around the level I am at the minute. I’ve done well so far, but I think everyone wants to keep getting better.
“If I do that, success will take care of itself. If I set targets, it’ll maybe take some of the fun away, become less of a hobby and more of a job – and that’s not what it’s about for me at the minute.”
