6 minute read
Muddy Boots Dart Club
~by Boris Ladwig, photos by Tom Preston
Sometime in 2016, Hondo Thompson stepped into the Video Saloon in Bloomington to offer some advice to a friend of a friend. He learned about a dart club that was playing there, and that chance encounter rekindled his interest in the sport, which he hadn’t played regularly for more than 30 years.
“I never took it seriously until 2016,” he said. “And then I hyper-focused and geeked out on it.”
Shortly after his stop in Bloomington, he approached the owners of the Muddy Boots/ Pine Room Tavern in Nashville to ask if he could hang a dart board there.
The owners agreed, and what began with a single player has since then evolved, with a couple of location changes in between, into the Muddy Boots Dart Club, which has more than 20 regulars throwing darts every Tuesday evening at Mike’s Dance Barn.
While anyone is welcome to join, newcomers may have a tough time participating in the tournament because it has 24 spots, and 22 regulars usually show up, Thompson said.
However, newcomers can still throw darts outside of the tournament, mingle, watch, eat, and listen to some musicians jam.
The club has only one rule, Thompson said.
“If you look over there and look at the Dart Club Rules, on the back of the board it says, “Rule One: Be Kind. Rule two: See Rule No. 1.’ And underneath it says, ‘If you can be kind, you can be here.’”
However, trash talking, or at least friendly ribbing, is allowed.
Someone may have a poor throw and get a comment such as, “That’s why you don’t get any Christmas cards,” Thompson said. Or someone may step up to the line and get a comment such as, “Did your mother cut your hair?”
Soon after he said the words, club member David Denman approached and said, “Almost about 79% of what he (Thompson) says is true.”
Turning serious, Denman said Thompson does not toot his horn, but the club wouldn’t be there without him.
Thompson waved away the praise, saying, “I literally hung the boards on the wall, and people started showing up.”
Participants play in randomly selected teams of two, and they typically play a game called cricket, which involves a bit more strategy than the usual 301 or 501, where players simply try to get from those numbers to zero with as few throws as possible.
Lisa Gore began playing with the club a bit over a year ago after first accompanying her husband, Kevin, who has been throwing darts with the club for about two years.
The couple put up a dartboard at the employee lounge at Out of the Ordinary, a restaurant and bar on Van Buren Street in Nashville, where they played after work.
Lisa Gore said the couple plays for fun and to keep busy and active, and eventually joined Muddy Boots, in part to get better.
She said she especially enjoys the camaraderie at the club.
Thompson said Mike’s Dance Barn owner Mike Robertson provides food, bar tenders offer drinks, and local musicians join the festivities, bringing anything from guitars and banjos to fiddles and flutes. Robertson may do a taco night, or the club members may have a pitch-in.
Thompson said club member Scott Wertz walked into the Pine Room and asked to play a couple of months after Thompson had hung the first board.
“When I said, ‘Do you know anything about the game?’ He reached in his back pocket and pulled out a set of darts. We’ve been friends ever since.”
Wertz said for some people spending time with friends is more important than the game.
“It’s a social thing. It really is,” he said as he recently stood near one of the dart boards, waiting for his turn during warmups before the tournament.
He said he also likes the sport because of its popularity and transportability. Playing darts can be an inexpensive activity, even in public places, such as a bar, where you might just buy a couple of beers or a snack.
Wertz said people also throw darts at home, in a basement or garage, and some even take a dartboard with them on vacation. He has hung a dartboard on a tree, he said.
Some club members throw darts a lot more often than just Tuesdays.
“Some people are more competitive than others,” Wertz said.
Some of the members play online against people from all around the world, by pointing their phone at
the board. He knows people who play at 2 a.m. against European opponents.
Thompson said some people swear by certain kinds of darts, much like anglers believe a certain lure gives them an advantage over competitors— or the fish.
“You talk to some of the people here, they’ll tell you what the percentage of tungsten is in their darts…and how long the point is,” he said.
Thompson is one of those people.
“I throw a 24-gram Harrows Black Ice that’s 90% tungsten with a (26)-millimeter point and rotating standard flights,” he said.
“Is that the best? No, it’s just what I like.”
Some people spend $150 on a set of darts, but others buy a $30 bucket with 30 darts in them.
“You can play with any set of darts and win,” Thompson said.
The sport also gains fans because of the obtuse learning curve, he said.
“It takes 15 minutes to learn it, and your lifetime to get good at it,” Thompson said. “You’re never as good as you can be.”
He said he always tells beginners that it doesn’t matter how they stand or rock or pivot or hold the dart or throw it—so long as they do it the same way every time.
“And I guarantee you 30 minutes from now, you’re going to be a lot better than you are right now. And that’s always true.”
And eventually, if you work really hard at it and stick with it, you might score a triple 20, followed by a triple 20 and another triple 20. That score, of 180 points, is somewhat equivalent to a hole in one in golf.
Thompson said he’s scored a 180 three times in the last nine years, including twice in front of other people. The first time, he took a photo of the three darts on the board. He still uses that photo as the screensaver on his phone.
Ultimately, though, Thompson said, the Muddy Boots Darts Club gains its importance not from athletic performance but from camaraderie.
“This is a fantastic club because it has fantastic people,” he said. “And I think people come here because they like each other.”
