Mick McGowan

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Mick McGowan
Personal information
Nickname The Magnet
Born (1973-02-01) February 1, 1973 (age 51)
Duleek, County Meath, Ireland
Home town Balbriggan, Dublin
Ireland
Darts information
Darts 26g Tungsten
Laterality Right-handed
Walk-on music One Way or Another by Blondie
Organisation (see split in darts)
PDC 2004–
Current world ranking 104
PDC premier events - best performances
World Ch'ship Last 32: 2007, 2008
World Matchplay Last 32: 2007
World Grand Prix Last 32: 2008, 2009, 2010
Ch'ship League Initial groups: 8th, 2008
Desert Classic Last 16: 2006
UK Open Last 64: 2006, 2007
US Open/WSoD Fifth round: 2007
Other tournament wins
Ireland Open Autumn Classic 2006
Tom Kirby Memorial Irish Matchplay 2015
Vauxhall Autumn Pro 2006

Mick McGowan (born February 1, 1973 in Duleek, County Meath) is an Irish darts player.

Career

He last played on the PDC pro tour in the Killarney Pro Tour 1 in October 2013 and his last regional match was in the Ireland Players Championship 6 in April 2014.[1] He was once Ireland's top ranked player. Mick picked up the 2006 Ireland Open Classic title with a 7-0 (sets) win over Kevin Painter in the final in Castlebar, County Mayo.

It marked a successful 12 months for Mick, who reached the final of the PDPA Players Championship in Scotland in November 2005 before qualifying for the Las Vegas Desert Classic the following June. He knocked out America's Ray Carver 6-3 in the first round before losing to Wes Newton at the last 16 stage. The Irishman went down 8-7 to Mark Walsh in the third round at the 2006 UK Open Darts finals, but bounced back in Las Vegas to come through the qualifiers.

In the 2007 PDC World Darts Championship he reached the second round before losing to Phil Taylor 4-1 in sets, despite achieving an average of 101.82.[2] He lost in the same round the next year, this time to youngster Kirk Shepherd, who reached the final. In the US Open Darts in 2007 he reached the 5th round before losing to Canadian John Part.

In the 2008 Las Vegas Desert Classic, McGowan made a reasonable impression. He played Terry Jenkins in the first round and lost 6-4 in a tight game. He also qualified for World Grand Prix finishing Ireland's number 1 player in the order of merit. He drew Jenkins yet again and was beaten 2-0 in sets.[3]

McGowan began sliding down the world rankings in 2009 after a run of bad form led by illness where he was diagnosed with hemochromatosis, where he had too much iron in his blood, 2500 ferritins which was way over the average of 50 ferritins. He had to go to hospital every week from January to have a pint of blood taken out to thin the iron which affected his practise due to chronic fatigue. McGowan was given the all-clear on the eve of the 2009 World Grand Prix.[4]

In 2010 Mick was defeated by the struggling Wayne Mardle in the UK Open by 6 legs to 3.

McGowan represented Ireland with William O'Connor at the inaugural PDC World Cup of Darts in 2010. The pair managed to defeat Slovakia in the first round 6-3 in legs.[5] They then faced the mighty Australian duo of Simon Whitlock and Paul Nicholson, the numbers 4 and 16 in the world and narrowly lost the match by 6-5.

He played in his second World Cup for Ireland in 2012, again paired with O'Connor and, as in 2010, they reached the second round this time by defeating Malaysia 5–2.[6] They played the same Australian pair as in 2010 next and were whitewashed 0–4.[7] In the rest of 2012 he could not advance beyond the last 64 of any of his events.[8] McGowan finished the year ranked world number 169, well outside of the top 64 who retain their places on the PDC tour and he did not have automatic entry into any event in the future.[9] In the 2015 Tom Kirby Memorial Irish Matchplay final he beat Tom Biggane 6-5 to qualify for the preliminary round of the 2016 PDC World Championship. Mick picked up his tour card by qualifying by the Q School Order Of Merit by reaching the Final only to lose to Ross Smith 5-4 but his run on the final day got him inside the Order Of Merit to qualify. Mick will play the 2016 and 2017 seasons.

World Championship results

PDC

References

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  4. Magnet Receives All-Clear
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External links