A superb weekend’s action on the Winmau Challenge Tour 2026 leaves us with just one weekend to go in the 2026 season, all eyes will be on the respective races to qualify for major tournaments and other end of season prizes:
1st – 2026 Grand Slam of Darts
Top 2 – 2027-28 Tour Card
Top 3 – 2027 World Darts Championship
3rd-10th – 2027 Winmau World Masters Preliminary & 2027 UK Open
DARTSWORLD’S DEDICATED WINMAU CHALLENGE TOUR AREA
The Final weekend will be at the end of September, with just four events. This means a maximum of £10,000 in prize money with each event having £2.5k on offer to the winner.
Derek Coulson
After picking up a second Challenge Tour Title of the year in Event 16, as well as a Final in Event 20, Derek Coulson has moved into top spot on the Challenge Tour, having sat in second behind Joe Hunt for the large majority of 2026.
He leads Hunt by £2,100, putting him in a strong position to claim the Grand Slam spot barring a Title for Hunt.
More importantly, the Welshman has a £4,250 buffer on winning a first Tour Card, and a £6,800 buffer on making his debut at the World Championships.
It really has been a brilliant year for Coulson having missed out on winning a Tour Card by a single leg in January.
I would predict him at over 90% to secure both a Tour Card and a Worlds spot, as well as 75% to qualify for the Grand Slam!
Joe Hunt
A very poor weekend overall for Hunt. Just three runs to the Last 64, as well as a Last 128 and a Last 256 loss. Just seven wins over the entire weekend. As a result, he has dropped below Derek Coulson into second on the Challenge Tour for the first time in 2026.
Joe Hunt has already almost certainly confirmed his World Championship debut thanks to his exploits on the ProTour, sitting 17th on the race to the World Championship on almost double the prize money on #41 Adam Gawlas.
This means his full focus will be on the Tour Card race at the moment, where he has a £1,250 buffer on Daniel Klose in third. On the face of this it is a big margin, but Klose won a total of £6,200 over this weekend, with Hunt picking up just £300.
He will also have one eye on the Grand Slam still, but has a tough task of chasing down Derek Coulson, who leads by £2,100.
Daniel Klose
Daniel Klose completed a brilliant weekend in Milton Keynes. A Title, a Final, a Quarter-Final, a Last 16 and a Last 64 for the German see’s him rise from #13 in the rankings all the way up to third!
DARTS PLAYER MERCHANDISE AND COLLECTABLES AT OUR DARTSWORLD STORE!
It is a very well-timed run as well for Klose, who now sits in a World Championship spot for the first time all year!
He currently has a £2,450 lead on Tommy Lishman in fifth place, giving him a fairly comfortable buffer to make his long-awaited debut at Alexandra Palace, having failed to do so in his two years with a tour card in 2023 & 2024.
Tommy Morris
Despite reaching the Final of Event 19, Tommy Morris failed to get past the Last 32 in any of the other four events. The one positive event however did boost ‘Tommy Gun’ up a place in the Order of Merit, moving into a World Championships spot in fourth thanks to Joe Hunt likely qualifying through the ProTour.
He only has a £750 gap on Tommy Lishman in fifth, meaning it will be a very stressful weekend in September in their race for the World Championship.
Tommy Lishman
Lishman came into the weekend ranked third on the Challenge Tour, with a £1,250 buffer in the race to the World Championship.
However, just one run past the Last 64 over the whole weekend – Last 16 in Event 18 – sees the Englishman drop down to fifth.This means he is now £750 behind Tommy Morris in the World Championship race, and will need a good weekend in September to secure a debut at Ally Pally.
There is a gap of over £1000 between Lishman and Daniel Ayres in sixth, meaning the race will only be between Tommy Lishman and Tommy Morris with the absence of a massive run in Wigan.
Other noticeable runs
Archie Self completed a very successful weekend on the Challenge Tour in Milton Keynes, winning a very first title aged just 16, as well as a Semi-Final and two Last 16 runs.
This combination has seen him shoot up the rankings to #9, giving him a very good chance at making his Players Championship debut in the coming weeks.
The top 8 on the Challenge Tour also qualify for next years UK Open and the preliminary rounds of the Winmau World Masters. With the top 2 qualifying with their Tour Card anyway, this means it will be from third down to tenth getting these rewards.
As it stands, this means a debuts for Ayres and Self, as well as the return of Klose, Morris, Lishman, Coates, Kirk, and Tweddell.
The likes of Nathan Potter, Chris Wickenden and Harry Ward sit just behind, looking to gatecrash this. With Tweddell sat in tenth on £6,050, it anyone ranked inside the top 50 would be able to move into these spots with a title on the final weekend next month in Wigan.
Winmau Challenge Tour Darts 2026
Darts Order of Merit:
he likes of Nathan Potter, Chris Wickenden and Harry Ward sit just behind, looking to gatecrash this. With Tweddell sat in tenth on £6,050, it anyone ranked inside the top 50 would be able to move into these spots with a title on the final weekend next month in Wigan.
Images: World Senior Darts
Graphic: DartsWorld
