Wayne Mardle

Wayne Mardle (born 10 May 1973 in Dagenham) is an English former professional darts player for the Professional Darts Corporation, and former player in the BDO. He now lives in Romford. Before turning professional, he worked for the Association of Accounting Technicians.
He has been known as "Hawaii 501" since 2000, due to the Hawaiian shirts he started wearing in 1998 for a bet, and 501 being the start score of a leg of darts. The name is also a play on the title of the popular television series, Hawaii Five-O. This dress sense coupled with his crowd-pleasing onstage activity (such as dancing to the interval music) has seen him become one of the most popular players on the circuit.

Wayne started playing darts at the age of 11, when he practised with his dad. His first 180 came two weeks after he started playing. He soon became better than his dad, and his first competition win was in a pub called the 'Double Top' on his 13th birthday in 1986.

His Lakeside debut came in 2000 where he lost to Matt Clark in the first round. In 2001 he reached the Semi Finals, beating Co Stompé and Ronnie Baxter before losing to eventual winner John Walton. His attempt in 2002 saw him fall in the last eight to Colin Monk.

Wayne joined the Professional Darts Corporation in time for the 2003 World Championship. His first appearance at the Circus Tavern saw him lose in the third round to Phil Taylor. His debut at Blackpool's Winter Gardens in the World Matchplay was much better, beating World Champion John Part, Alan Warriner and Colin Lloyd to reach the final, where he again lost to Taylor.

Wayne had till 2010 played in every Premier League except for 2007 due to poor form and disappointing results. 2005 and 2006 did not go well, and Wayne finished bottom of the table in both years. (Players who come bottom of the League are said to have won the "Mardle Cup," named in honour of him.)

Despite a poor 2006 and 2007, he found his form at the 2008 World Championship, ending Taylor's record of reaching every PDC World Darts Championship final on 29 December 2007 by defeating him 5 sets to 4 in a quarter-final match having trailed 3-0. Following his victory, he showed great emotion at finally defeating "The Power" on TV. Mardle was then beaten in the semi-finals for the fourth time in his PDC career by 21-year-old qualifier Kirk Shepherd. He later said this was the worst defeat of his career, citing his own attitude as "disgusting".

In January 2008 Mardle was confirmed as the Sky Sports wildcard entry to the 2008 PDC Darts Premier League following his impressive performance at the World Championships. Whilst this decision was questioned by some, Mardle proved the doubters wrong with a steady campaign which saw him finish in fifth place, missing out on the Play-Offs by just two legs to Adrian Lewis.

Whilst he has reached 5th in the World Rankings and performed consistently well in the World Championship (reaching the semi-final in 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2008), he has not yet won a major tournament as a member of the PDC. He has always seemed to suffer from what Sid Waddell calls the "Mardle Drift", which sees his Darts continually land in 5 and Treble 5 instead of the 20/Treble 20.

Mardle suffered hard luck during the 2009 Premier League Darts. After amassing just four points from his opening nine games, he missed week ten due to a virus. He had been due to return the following week, but was rushed into hospital the day before the matches due to mumps. With five matches to play in the final three weeks, one more missed week would eliminate Mardle from the competition. Sadly for Mardle, that occurred. Having been passed fit for a week twelve return, Mardle was re-admitted to hospital, and in accordance with tournament regulations, was removed from the tournament. His results from the tournament were also annulled.

Mardle's poor form continued in the 2010 PDC World Championship, where he lost to Jyhan Artut 3-0 with a poor average of 72. Mardle continued to drop out the rankings and was ranked as low as 85th in the Order of Merit.

Mardle also attempted to qualify for the 2012 PDC World Championship via the PDPA qualifier which was held in Wigan and was whitewashed 5-0 in the Preliminary Round by Ken Dobson.

Mardle's slide down the world rankings meant he was no longer assured of a PDC tour card to play on the Pro Tour, and had to enter the Q School to try and earn one. However, on the eve of the first Q School qualifier, Mardle announced on his Twitter page that he had decided not to go to Q School and instead focus on commentating for Sky Sports and playing in exhibitions.

Mardle made his commentating debut for the PDC at the 2011 PDC World Darts Championship, working alongside Sid Waddell in a few matches. He also co-presented some of the event with Dave Clark and predicting some of the match results with Rod Harrington and Eric Bristow. Mardle continued his analyzing and commentary career at the 2011 Premier League Darts apart from weeks 3, 5, 9, 10, 11 and 14.

He continued his commentary career in the 2012 PDC World Darts Championship, where he co-commentated on every night of the televised event. He has since become a regular on all Sky televised tournaments both as a commentator during matches and as the main pundit in the studio portions of the show. During the World Championships Mardle also has regular segments where he rewards crowd participation, either dancing, fancy dress outfits or funny signs, with a "Wayne's World" T-shirt.

Alongside his successful darts career, away from the oche Mardle has been a keen advocate for the support of players suffering from Dartitis. In 2013 Mardle spoke about former 5 Time World Champion Eric Bristow and outlined that Dartitis was "the fear of throwing the dart" and emphasised how it "must've been awful" for Bristow. It is this support that has earned Mardle plaudits from many within the darting circle for his well articulated support and awareness on the subject.

He married Donna on 2 July 2002. The couple are good friends with ladies' darts player Crissy Manley, wife of three-time PDC World Championship runner-up Peter.

In 2006, Mardle had a darts book published (co-authored with Ian Spragg) entitled "Hawaii 501 - Life As A Darts Pro". It chronicles the ups and downs of his life as a professional darts player during 2005.

Mardle supports the football team Tottenham Hotspur and appeared in the May 2009 Edition of Hotspur, the football club's official club magazine.

BDO

• 2000: 1st Round (lost to Matt Clark 1-3)
• 2001: Semi-Finals (lost to John Walton 3-5)
• 2002: Quarter-Finals (lost to Colin Monk 4-5)

PDC

• 2003: 3rd Round (lost to Phil Taylor 3-5)
• 2004: Semi-Finals (lost to Phil Taylor 2-6)
• 2005: Semi-Finals (lost to Mark Dudbridge 4-6)
• 2006: Semi-Finals (lost to Phil Taylor 5-6)
• 2007: 1st Round (lost to Alan Caves 2-3)
• 2008: Semi-Finals (lost to Kirk Shepherd 4-6)
• 2009: 3rd Round (lost to Co Stompé 0-4)
• 2010: 1st Round (lost to Jyhan Artut 0-3)

PDC premier event finals: 3 (3 runners-up)

Outcome	No.	Year	Championship	Opponent in the final	Score
Runner-up	1.	2003	World Matchplay	Phil Taylor	12–18 (l)
Runner-up	2.	2004	Las Vegas Desert Classic	Phil Taylor	4–6 (s)
Runner-up	2.	2005	Las Vegas Desert Classic	Phil Taylor	1–6 (s)