As MVG reaches another World Championship final, mere months after having his darts tweaked by the ‘Winmau Wizard’, it seemed only correct to remember the remarkable record of Lee Huxtable:
In the world of Harry Potter, it may be that “the wand chooses the wizard”. But in the world of tungsten and steel the wizards ‘leave it to Lee’.
Lee Huxtable is responsible for the arrows of a raft of World and major champions. Current trophy holder Luke Humphries, Dutch icon Michael van Gerwen are among the club members together with recent World title winners Peter Wright, Gerwyn Price, Neil Duff and Wayne Warren.
In other sports such as golf, such success would lead to legendary status, a personal range
and probably a large financial reward, imagine one man designing, refining and producing clubs for Tiger Woods, Rory McKilroy and Justin Rose or tennis racquets for Federer, Nadal Djokovic and Murray!
In darts, very few outside the industry nerds have heard Lee’s name other than in passing.
Making darts for elite, or aspiring elite, players is a very delicate balance. For Lee, it is the result of more than a decade fitting players for Winmau and Red Dragon.
I first heard of Lee from managers and players who would rave about his skills after they visited the Welsh company’s HQ for a custom fitting. These sessions involve a lot of talking and a lot of testing.
Lee spends as much time trying to understand what the player really wants as he goes about making early test sets.
Occasionally it’s a swift process, one player took what he thought was an old rare dart. Lee listened and paid careful attention to what the player liked about them and produced two sets. Within an hour the player selected one and the rest of the session was spent on cosmetics.
More usually it’s a long back and forth in order to get the basics followed by an arduous test and tweak process that can take hours, or even repeat sessions, with sets being sent back and forth across the country.
One player proved a particularly stiff challenge. Picture the movie scene, with wands flying everywhere, when Olivander cannot find a wand for Harry Potter himself. Then a lone wand left out of mind raises itself for attention…
Read more of Lee’s remarkable contribution – and just who was that difficult customer? – in Darts World 588 (print) out now!
—–ENDS—–
Images: Darts World
