MITCHELL Lawrie is the 2024 Foundation Tour champion after winning a record-breaking seventh event of the season – while Jack Howarth signed off with a sixth event win of the tour.
Lawrie, the 13-year-old Scot, beat Jack Nankervis’ 2023 haul of six titles when he won the Event 19 title on Sunday afternoon, guaranteeing the overall title in the process.
Then, in a fitting final match of the tour season, Lawrie faced Howarth – his closest rival throughout the campaign – with the 17-year-old Englishman winning 5-1 to cap an excellent season for him personally.
Between them, Lawrie and Howarth won 13 of the 20 events – so the two of them contesting another final was an apt way for the Foundation Tour to conclude.
After the 20 events, it is confirmed that Lawrie, Cori Wiltshire, Drake Porter and Owen Bryceland have qualified for 2025 Advanced Tour cards, while those four plus Joseph Flenley, Ethan Pulham, Hayden Ball and Kaleb Gascoyne will compete at the JDC World Championship in Gibraltar toward the end of the year. Howarth would have qualified for both had he not been too old.
EVENT 19 SUMMARY
Lawrie had not been feeling well coming into the final day of Foundation Tour action – but he showed no signs of that as he stormed to a seventh title on this year’s tour.
He beat Porter, the talented 11-year-old from Kent, 5-2 in the final to clinch the overall title, having already booked his spot on next year’s Advanced Tour.
Lawrie has shown his quality and his character time and time again on this year’s tour – and he did it again to surpass Nankervis’ six titles from last year.
He opened with a pair of 3-0 wins, although the scoreline did not tell the full story of his victory over Gascoyne in the last 64.
Lawrie averaged just north of 92, with Gascoyne – who went into the day chasing an Advanced Tour spot but ultimately had to be content with a World Championship spot – posting an 82 average himself.
After the first leg, when Lawrie went out in 15 darts with an 83 checkout, Gascoyne was on a double in each of the next two legs, but had to watch as Lawrie took out 100 and then 32 to advance.
After a couple of 3-1 wins, first against Zach Godber and then Fabian Tapner, Lawrie had to scrap his way past Ball in the quarter-finals. Ball threw first, and the match was going with throw until the final leg, when Lawrie broke to clinch a 3-2 win.
Lawrie again had to dig deep in the semi-final, beating Jake Hobbs 4-3 in a match without any breaks of throw. Hobbs fully played his part in a compelling spectacle, hitting an 82 checkout to draw level at 1-1 with Lawrie waiting on double 2, and then producing a 14-darter to make it 3-3. But Lawrie closed out the match on double 16 to reach yet another final.
In the final itself, he led 3-0 against Porter, before being given a scare when Porter won two on the bounce to get back to within a leg. Porter was throwing for 3-3 – but Lawrie broke to make it 4-2 and then closed out the match in the next leg.
The competitive nature of the Foundation Tour was highlighted by Saturday’s two event winners and one runner-up – Lewis Mayes, Flenley and David Birks – all suffering first-round exits.
But one player who needed to win to keep his Advanced Tour hopes alive – Gibraltar’s Pulham – kept himself in the frame with a fine run to the semi-finals.
He beat Ethan Todd, Sion Davies, Alfie Cook and Ieuan King, before producing his best performance of the event in a 3-1 win over Riley Pinhorne in the quarters, hitting a 180, three 140s and a further five ton-plus scores.
His run was eventually ended by the impressive Porter in the last four and he ultimately missed out on the Advanced Tour by three points – but he will compete in the World Championship in his homeland later this year.
Quarter-finals:
Ethan Pulham (Gib) 3-1 Riley Pinhorne (Eng)
Drake Porter (Eng) 3-1 Alex Hopkins (Eng)
Jake Hobbs (Eng) 3-0 Jack Peet (Eng)
Mitchell Lawrie (Sco) 3-2 Hayden Ball (Eng)
Semi-finals:
Drake Porter (Eng) 4-2 Ethan Pulham (Gib)
Mitchell Lawrie (Sco) 4-3 Jake Hobbs (Eng)
Final:
Mitchell Lawrie (Sco) 5-2 Drake Porter (Eng)
EVENT 20 SUMMARY
Howarth versus Lawrie has been a theme of this year’s Foundation Tour – and the 2024 season ended with the Tour’s two most consistent players battling it out again.
Lawrie had only dropped one leg before the final – in his 3-1 quarter-final win over Lewis Cook – but he lost 5-1 in the main event as Howarth ensured the perfect sign-off as a Foundation Tour player.
He set the tone by taking out 74 to break Lawrie in the opening leg, then produced a brilliant 128 to leave 36 for the second, and delivered a brilliant 157 checkout for 3-0. Lawrie broke back for 3-1 but any hopes of a comeback were soon extinguished as a 15-darter against the throw put Howarth 4-1 up. Howarth closed out the match in the next leg, despite back-to-back visits of 134 and 140 from Lawrie, to celebrate his sixth win of the year.
He was Mr Consistency throughout the day, his average not deviating beyond a four-point range in all seven matches he played, as he saw off Jack Divall, Davies, Archie Chippendale and Flenley in the early rounds.
He then beat Jake Hobbs 3-1 in the last eight, before a 4-2 over Alfie Cook in the semis, in which Howarth set the tone by opening with a 116 checkout to cap a 15-darter, before clinching the win with a two-dart combo to take out 56 as Cook sat on double 16 waiting to make it 3-3.
Lawrie had breezed his way into the final, only dropping one leg en route and producing one of the event’s most ruthless performances in his 4-0 semi-final win against Jake Shipley, wrapping up the victory with a 15-darter.
Shipley’s defeat will have come as a relief to Gascoyne, for whom a World Championship spot had looked inevitable – until he suffered a last-64 defeat to Luke Baki. As Shipley kept winning, Gascoyne’s nerves must have been tested, but Lawrie ended his run in the last four and ensured Gascoyne’s place in Gibraltar.
Quarter-finals:
Jake Shipley (Eng) 3-2 Alex Hopkins (Eng)
Mitchell Lawrie (Sco) 3-1 Lewis Cook (Eng)
Jack Howarth (Eng) 3-1 Jake Hobbs (Eng)
Alfie Cook (Eng) 3-1 Cori Wiltshire (Eng)
Semi-finals:
Mitchell Lawrie (Sco) 4-0 Jake Shipley (Eng)
Jack Howarth (Eng) 4-2 Alfie Cook (Eng)
Final:
Jack Howarth (Eng) 5-1 Mitchell Lawrie (Sco)
