Kirk Shepherd

BDO career

Shepherd won the World Youth Masters in 2003, the British Teenage Singles Champion in 2004 and 2006 and was twice voted British Darts Organisation (BDO) Young Player of the Year in 2005 and 2006. At the age of just 18, he reached the final of the BDO Gold Cup in 2005. In 2006, he reached the quarter finals of the England Open, before switching from the BDO circuit to join the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) in November 2006.

PDC career

Shepherd's first 12 months in the PDC were not particularly successful – with just a couple of last 32 placings in the non-televised Pro Tour events and reached only 142 in the PDC World Rankings by the time of the qualifying rounds for the 2008 World Championship. Shepherd then qualified at the last chance PDPA qualifier to earn a place at the tournament proper at the Alexandra Palace.

He then produced a series of major upsets at the 2008 World Championship (despite failing to achieve a three-dart average of over 90 at any stage of the competition), beating Terry Jenkins in the first round, then Mick McGowan and Barrie Bates and three-times former finalist Peter Manley to reach the semi-finals. Jenkins missed seven darts to beat him, McGowan missed four darts and Manley missed two darts to end his run, but he continued to progress. He then defeated Wayne Mardle, who had been installed as tournament favourite after his upset victory over Phil Taylor in the previous round, 6–4 in the semi-final and met John Part in the final on New Year's Day, when he scored the lowest average by a finalist in the PDC World Championship during his 2–7 loss. Shepherd is still the only darts player in PDC history to not score a three-dart average of above 90 in any round of a single World Championship and reach the final. He collected the runners-up cheque for £50,000 – his previous career earnings had been £16,970. Shepherd qualified for the Grand Slam of Darts in 2008 and his world ranking jumped from 173 at the start of 2007 to 22nd at the start of 2008. After the match, he quit his job where he had worked in a factory.^{[citation needed]}

Shepherd was unable to continue his form throughout 2008, losing out in the last 64 in the UK Open and failing to qualify for the Las Vegas Desert Classic and the 2008 World Matchplay championship. Shepherd did play in the 2008 Grand Slam in November but lost all three of his group games, losing 5–1 to Raymond van Barneveld and 5–0 to Gary Mawson before narrowly losing 5–4 to Robert Thornton.

Shepherd entered the 2009 World Championship as the number 23 seed and faced Jan van der Rassel in the first round, losing 3–2 in a tie-break.

In August 2009, Shepherd reached the quarter-finals in the US Open for the very first time. This was followed up in November 2009 by winning two of his three group games in the 2009 Grand Slam of Darts to reach the second round, where he lost 5–10 to Kevin Painter.

In March 2010, Shepherd reached the quarter-finals of Players Championship 7 at the Robin Park Tennis Centre in Wigan. He lost 0–6 to Colin Lloyd.

In September 2011, Shepherd reached the quarter finals of the Players Championship 18 at the Moorways Centre in Derby. He lost 1–6 to Paul Nicholson.

In February 2013, he was ranked seven of the nine Tour Card winners from the Q School Order of Merit.

In 2015, Shepherd competed in the PDC Challenge Tour which is open to all PDPA Associate Members who failed to win a Tour Card at Qualifying School. He reached two finals, winning 5–3 against Jack Tweddel in March and losing 2–5 against Martin Lukeman in September.

In 2017, Shepherd entered qualifying school and earned a tour card on day four. His best result on the Pro Tour was a quarter-final in the 13th players championship event.

Shepherd lost his tour card at the end of 2018 and returned to Q school in the 2019 edition, where on the first day he made it to the final but was beaten by Jamie Hughes 5–2. On the second day he failed to win a match. On the third day he won one game. He won the fourth and final day by beating Painter 5–2 to retain his tour card for the 2019–2020 seasons. This also means he was guaranteed a spot for the 2019 and 2020 editions of the UK Open.

On 14 February 2021, Shepherd managed to regain his tour card beating Jack Main 6–1 in the final of the first day of 2021 PDC UK Qualifying School.

On 5 January 2022, he handed in his tour card due to problems with dartitis.

PDC

• 2008: Runner-up (lost to John Part 2–7)
• 2009: 1st round (lost to Jan van der Rassel 2–3)
• 2010: 3rd round (lost to Mark Webster 1–4)
• 2011: 1st round (lost to Wayne Jones 1–3)

PDC premier event finals: 1

Outcome	No.	Year	Championship	Opponent in the final	Score
Runner-up	1.	2008	World Championship	John Part	2–7 (s)

BDO

PDC