PDC World Number One Reigns by Player, 1993–2026
Every change of PDC world number one since 1993: 30 reigns across 14 players, with start dates, the triggering event, and days held at the top of the ranking.
This table lists every change of PDC world number one from the tour’s founding in 1993 to the current holder: 30 reigns shared by 14 players. It is the complete record of the event, not a sample; a change at the top happens about once every 14 months on average. Each row gives the start date, the tournament that triggered the change where one is recorded, and how many days the reign lasted.
Sort any column or search the table; download the CSV below the table.
Two Players Held the Top Spot for 48% of the Time
Adding up each player's reigns gives their total days as number one. Phil Taylor leads with 3,351 days across 8 separate reigns, and Michael van Gerwen has 2,559 days from a single reign. The full span from the first reign to the retrieval date is 12,307 days, so those two players account for 48% of it and Phil Taylor alone for 27%.
The typical reign is short: the median is 226 days, against a mean of 411 days pulled up by the two long reigns. The shortest was Phil Taylor's 7-day spell in 2006; the longest, Michael van Gerwen's 2,559 days from 2014. Only 19 of the 33 calendar years saw any change at all, and 2002 and 2022 each saw 4.
A World Championship title is the most common trigger: 9 of the 30 reigns started with one. The current holder, Luke Littler, has been number one since 16 November 2025, 300 days at the retrieval date.
Total Days at Number One by Player
Each bar sums a player's reigns; the 2002 joint reign counts for both players. The current reign is counted to 2026-09-13. Hover a bar for the total.
Every Change of PDC World Number One
| No.▼ | Player▼ | Reign No.▼ | From▼ | Year▼ | Triggering Event▼ | Reign Length (days)▼ | Joint▼ |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Alan Warriner | 1 | January 1993 | 1993 | Incarnation of the WDC | 674 | no |
| 2 | Dennis Priestley | 1 | 6 November 1994 | 1994 | 1994 Lada UK Masters | 155 | no |
| 3 | Rod Harrington | 1 | 10 April 1995 | 1995 | 1995 UK Matchplay | 479 | no |
| 4 | Phil Taylor | 1 | August 1996 | 1996 | — | 31 | no |
| 4 | Alan Warriner | 2 | September 1996 | 1996 | — | 699 | no |
| 4 | Rod Harrington | 2 | 1 August 1998 | 1998 | 1998 World Matchplay | 728 | no |
| 4 | Phil Taylor | 2 | 29 July 2000 | 2000 | 2000 World Matchplay | 57 | no |
| 5 | Peter Manley | 1 | 24 September 2000 | 2000 | 2000 Windy City Open | 399 | no |
| 5 | Alan Warriner | 3 | 28 October 2001 | 2001 | 2001 World Grand Prix | 69 | no |
| 5 | Alan Warriner | 4 | 5 January 2002 | 2002 | 2002 World Championship | 28 | yes |
| 5 | Phil Taylor | 3 | 5 January 2002 | 2002 | 2002 World Championship | 28 | yes |
| 5 | Alan Warriner | 5 | 2 February 2002 | 2002 | 2002 Eastbourne Open | 88 | no |
| 5 | Phil Taylor | 4 | May 2002 | 2002 | — | 248 | no |
| 6 | John Part | 1 | 4 January 2003 | 2003 | 2003 World Championship | 203 | no |
| 6 | Phil Taylor | 5 | 26 July 2003 | 2003 | 2003 Bobby Bourn Memorial Trophy | 582 | no |
| 7 | Colin Lloyd | 1 | 27 February 2005 | 2005 | 2005 West Tyrone Open | 469 | no |
| 7 | Phil Taylor | 6 | 11 June 2006 | 2006 | 2006 UK Open | 7 | no |
| 7 | Colin Lloyd | 2 | 18 June 2006 | 2006 | 2006 Players Championship 3 | 197 | no |
| 7 | Phil Taylor | 7 | 1 January 2007 | 2007 | 2007 World Championship | 365 | no |
| 8 | Raymond van Barneveld | 1 | 1 January 2008 | 2008 | 2008 World Championship | 159 | no |
| 8 | Phil Taylor | 8 | 8 June 2008 | 2008 | 2008 UK Open | 2,033 | no |
| 9 | Michael van Gerwen | 1 | 1 January 2014 | 2014 | 2014 World Championship | 2,559 | no |
| 10 | Gerwyn Price | 1 | 3 January 2021 | 2021 | 2021 World Championship | 427 | no |
| 11 | Peter Wright | 1 | 6 March 2022 | 2022 | 2022 UK Open | 140 | no |
| 11 | Gerwyn Price | 2 | 24 July 2022 | 2022 | 2022 World Matchplay | 77 | no |
| 11 | Peter Wright | 2 | 9 October 2022 | 2022 | 2022 World Grand Prix | 21 | no |
| 11 | Gerwyn Price | 3 | 30 October 2022 | 2022 | 2022 European Championship | 65 | no |
| 12 | Michael Smith | 1 | 3 January 2023 | 2023 | 2023 World Championship | 365 | no |
| 13 | Luke Humphries | 1 | 3 January 2024 | 2024 | 2024 World Championship | 683 | no |
| 14 | Luke Littler | 1 | 16 November 2025 | 2025 | 2025 Grand Slam | 300 | no |
Reign length is days until the next change; the last row is the current reign, counted to the retrieval date. A dash in the triggering event means the source records no specific tournament for that ranking update.
Download the full table (CSV) · 30 rows
How the Numbers Were Made
Source and counting. The rows are the reign-history table in Wikipedia's PDC Order of Merit article, retrieved 2026-09-13. The article lists 29 rows; the 5 January 2002 entry names two players tied at number one and is split into one row per player, giving 30. Reference markers and the reign-count suffix on player names were stripped; the ordinal in the No. column is carried forward from the last filled cell where the source leaves it blank for a repeat reign.
The finding. Days at number one per player is the sum of that player's reign lengths. The span is the sum of all reign lengths less the 28 days of the joint reign, which is one stretch of time listed twice. Shares are a player's days divided by that span. The median and mean are taken over all 30 reign lengths.
Gaps. This is a small dataset by nature: it is the complete history of a rare event, 30 changes in 33 years, so there is no larger sample to draw. 3 reigns have no triggering event and only a month for the start date, because the source records none. Reigns before the points-based Order of Merit of the early 2000s come from a less formal ranking, so early lengths are not exactly comparable with modern ones. The ranking is the PDC's only; the BDO and WDF kept a separate number one over the same years.
Licence. The table figures were read from Wikipedia finals tables, which Wikipedia publishes under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence. Wikipedia is credited in the sources list, along with the official body whose results the Wikipedia editors cite. Reuse of this table carries the same CC BY-SA 4.0 terms.
Sources
- PDC Order of Merit, reign history tablesecondaryWikipedia · secondary · retrieved 2026-09-13 · CC BY-SA 4.0 — The article cites PDC ranking announcements and press coverage for each change
- PDC Order of Merit, official rankingsprimaryPDC · primary · retrieved 2026-09-13 · Official results; facts not copyrightable — The live ranking the Wikipedia table is built from