Can a Novice Beat a Professional Darts Player?

How well do you think you’d compete against the best darts player in the world?

Most of us never get to find out. But a recent reporting trip gave two of my colleagues a chance to try.

Last week, we wrote about how top athletes in precision-based sports like darts have increased their scores over the decades. During our reporting, we met Michael Smith and Rob Cross, who currently sit first and eighth in the rankings compiled by the Professional Darts Corporation, the world’s biggest darts organization. They were getting ready to play in a tournament at Madison Square Garden.

We asked them if they’d be willing to participate in a bit of a contest to demonstrate the yawning gap between professionals and rest of us. Luckily for us, they said yes.

The “contest” was this: We asked the pros to throw 100 darts in a row at the triple 20, the highest-scoring section of a dart board. Then we had two of our New York Times colleagues, Larry Buchanan and Emily Rhyne, do the same.

Smith hit the tiny triple-20 section 42 times out of 100. This was slightly below his percentage in this year’s P.D.C. World Championship final, in which he hit the same section 46 percent of the time he aimed at it. Cross hit the triple-20 region 29 times out of 100.

Larry and Emily fared … far worse. Larry hit the triple-20 section six times out of his 100 throws, and Emily hit it twice.

Even when the pros did miss, it wasn’t by much. All 200 of their throws landed either in the triple 20 or in a section that directly or diagonally bordered it. Unfortunately, the same couldn’t be said of our colleagues. If you look at the charts of where their darts landed, you might not even know where they were aiming. (For the record, they are very good at the jobs they are paid to do; darts is just not one of them.)

Emily said she had played darts fewer than 10 times in her life and described her performance in front of the best players in the world as “tragic.” The upside for Emily, if there is one, is that she may improve with practice if she wishes to. Even Smith, who throws darts every day unless it’s a Sunday or tournament travel day, says he’s getting better each year. If there is room for improvement for those already posting the best rounds of all time, then there is certainly room for improvement for the rest of us.