Jules van Dongen impressively managed to get under the skin of Michael van Gerwen during his appearance at the US Darts Masters earlier this year.
The Dutch-born, US-based player ran the three-time world champion close at Madison Square Garden, firing up a partisan home crowd before losing a tight match 6-4.
Van Dongan’s exuberance on stage clearly irritated Van Gerwen, who cuttingly said after the match: “He has to do that, what else can he do? With all due respect, he doesn’t have 20 per cent of the talent I’ve got.”
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The comments irked Van Dongen initially, but he holds no ill-feeling towards MVG, whom he describes as a “nice guy”. Whether Van Gerwen’s “20 per cent” claim is accurate or not, it was a victory for Van Dongen to merely be on the same stage as arguably the finest player of all time after Phil Taylor.
The tournament, part of the PDC’s World Series of Darts, marked just a year since his first big event and came just a few months after he secured his PDC Tour card.
At the start of 2020, Van Dongen was happily working in hospitality for a distillery company in Missouri, where he has settled with his American wife Lisa since moving from the Netherlands.
Looking up to Dutch darting icon Raymond van Barneveld, Van Dongen had always been a fan of the sport. In his youth, he often spent more time on the dartboard in his room than on his homework.
However, a career in the sport never seemed to be an option due to his work commitments, which involved working at weekends. Then the pandemic hit and anyone working in the hospitality sector suddenly had a lot more time on their hands.
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That allowed him to practice regularly and take part in online tournaments. And when the world started to open up again last year, Van Dongen started playing in actual tournaments before having a bash at PDC Q-School. To his surprise, he secured his Tour card at the first attempt.
With ranking tournaments taking place in Europe, he then had a decision to make – work or give darts a go? Darts won.
“With all the travel back and forth to England, it was not possible to have a job and do all that,” he tells Daily Star Sport. “I made a decision pretty quick to give it 100 per cent.
“For the year-and-a-half from when I started [taking darts seriously], it felt like everything went my way. But since I got my Tour card, it’s been a wake-up call, like ‘hey, I need to step it up’. It’s been tough, but it’s a learning curve. It’s my first year, I just need to gain experience and get better.
“In June of last year, I played my first real tournament [Van Dongen won a WDF event in Florida]. I have to be careful of setting the bar too high and getting disappointed over and over. I just need to see the positives.”
After landing his Tour card, his first taste of the big time came at this year’s UK Open, held at Butlin’s Minehead, where he reached the second round.
“I played on both stages,” he recalled. “At the beginning it’s overwhelming. You look out at the crowd and you’re like ‘oh, that’s going be me in 15 minutes’. It’s hard to keep the nerves in check and get used to that.
“But the more you do it, it becomes a lot easier and you start having more fun on stage rather than focusing on trying to not look like a fool. Now, when I’m on that stage, I enjoy it. I love reacting to the crowd.”
Van Dongen’s UK Open wasn’t finished when he was knocked out. Instead, he decided to stick around and soak up the atmosphere as part of the crowd.
“I think I watched every session,” he said. “Everyone was singing. Where I come from we celebrate Carnival and it reminded me of that, people dressed up and partying.
“I didn’t see a single fight, it was just a really great atmosphere. I would say 90 per cent of darts players live for those moments.
“Obviously, you want to make a good living out of it but, for me, those are the rewards, being on those stages. Two years ago, I’d only played in my basement, now I’m on that stage. It still feels a little bit surreal.”
There was another surreal moment for Van Dongen when he took on Van Gerwen in New York after securing a place at the US Masters.
“I started really bad but he let me in a little bit and it became a real match,” he reflected on the match. “The crowd got really lively and I started enjoying it.
“I know he might not have been on his A-game but for me it didn’t matter, I just wanted to go on stage and make him sweat, and I think I did that. For me, it was job accomplished.
“Everyone was chanting ‘USA, USA’. I remember MVG said to the crowd a couple of times ‘he’s Dutch, he’s Dutch’. It was a lot of fun, probably the highlight of the year so far, along with the World Cup [Van Dongen represented the US at the World Cup of Darts in June].
So does he feel more Dutch or American?
“When I play darts, I feel really American,” he said. “Because in the Netherlands I believe we have about 19 Tour card holders so there’s plenty of good Dutch players.
“I feel I can make more of an impact on US darts than I can for the Netherlands. Also, I started playing for the US and I feel I owe it to the United States to play for them. I’m pretty proud of it.
“But outside of darts, I’m more Dutch than American, especially if the Netherlands were playing the United States at the World Cup, I’ll be wearing orange for sure.”
Van Gerwen’s “20 per cent” jibe after their match earned him criticism on social media while Van Dongen cheekily tweeted: “D**** come in all shapes and sizes, sometimes they wear green jerseys. I play with my heart. I might not have the talent he does but I sure am enjoying it all [heart and US flag emojis].” The tweet was subsequently deleted.
Reflecting on the spat, Van Dongen said: “When I first heard it [Van Gerwen’s comments], I was a little bit irritated by it but I’m the first one to admit he has way more talent than me, that’s a fact.
“I think the problem most people had with it is that he gave it a number. You can’t really put a number on talent. But I saw the fun of it. He’s a nice guy, he really is.
“Being in his position, he was the number one in the world for six years and if he doesn’t play well he gets run over by people. He’s in a different position to me. I’m enjoying it and he’s expected to be MVG, but you can’t always be on you’re A-game.
“He has more pressure. No one expected me to win and it almost happened so his first response was to prove he is the best.”
Looking forward, Van Dongen is hoping to book a place at the next PDC World Championship, which could potentially see a rematch with Van Gerwen. A qualifying event in Barnsley in November holds the key to his hopes.
“The darts are flying better,” he said. “If I show up, I can still qualify, that’s the plan.
“Next year is when I really want to get going. There are plenty of examples on the Tour of a rough first year before doing well in the second. I have a lot of faith in that.”
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