Wynand Havenga (born 6 September 1965) is a South African former professional

darts Darts or dart-throwing is a competitive sport in which two or more players bare-handedly throw small sharp-pointed missiles known as darts at a round target known as a dartboard. Points can be scored by hitting specific marked areas of the bo ...

player.

Career

He made his television debut at the

2007 PDC World Darts Championship The 2007 Ladbrokes.com World Darts Championship was the 14th World Championship organised by the Professional Darts Corporation since it separated from the British Darts Organisation. The tournament took place between 18 December 2006 – 1 Janua ...

as a qualifier, having beaten almost 100 players to win the South African Masters and thus earn his place at the

Circus Tavern The Circus Tavern is an entertainment venue in Purfleet, Essex, England which hosts functions, cabaret acts and is also a nightclub venue. First opened in 1974, it is most famous as having been a long-time venue of the PDC World Darts Champion ...

. He beat

Steve Maish Stephen Maish (born 22 November 1963 in Southend, Essex) is a retired English professional darts player who competed in Professional Darts Corporation events. He used the nickname Mr Magic for his matches. Career Maish made his televised deb ...

in the first round and then conquered established pro

Peter Manley Peter David Manley (born 7 March 1962) is an English former professional darts player who played in Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) events from July 1996 until 2017. He won one major title, the Las Vegas Desert Classic, in 2003, and twic ...

in round two, but bowed out in the last 16 to

Darren Webster Darren Michael Webster (born 10 June 1968) is an English darts player nicknamed Demolition Man. Career Webster won the 2005 Open Oust Nederland, beating Co Stompé in the final. Originally nicknamed The Sniper, Webster reached the quarter-fina ...

. Havenga became a popular figure during the World Championship, his unique celebrations while winning a leg, or even hitting a 180, led comparisons to

Cliff Lazarenko Cliff Lazarenko (born 16 March 1952) is an English former professional darts player. Nicknamed "Big Cliff" due to his height (193 cm / 6'4") and weight (over 127 kg at his peak), he is known for being a colourful character on and off the stage ...

and a fan-base, who call themselves the "Havenga Boys".Wynand Havenga in Team Unicorn
retrieved 22 December 2007. However, he has since struggled with a shoulder injury and his ranking has since fallen to 500, after the £8,500 he earned at Circus Tavern, was wiped off in 2009 due to the two-year-cyclical rule of the

PDC Order of Merit The PDC Order of Merit is a world ranking system used by one of the darts organisations, the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC). Following the 2007 PDC World Darts Championship it superseded a world ranking system based on points being awarded f ...

. Outside darts, he is a business manager for a motor dealer and has recently joined Unicorn Darts. He also launched his own steel and soft-tip 19 gram darts made from a 90%

tungsten Tungsten, or wolfram, is a chemical element with the symbol W and atomic number 74. Tungsten is a rare metal found naturally on Earth almost exclusively as compounds with other elements. It was identified as a new element in 1781 and first isol ...

nickel Nickel is a chemical element with symbol Ni and atomic number 28. It is a silvery-white lustrous metal with a slight golden tinge. Nickel is a hard and ductile transition metal. Pure nickel is chemically reactive but large pieces are slow ...

alloy An alloy is a mixture of chemical elements of which at least one is a metal. Unlike chemical compounds with metallic bases, an alloy will retain all the properties of a metal in the resulting material, such as electrical conductivity, ductilit ...

.Wynand Havenga Global Steel tip darts
retrieved 22 December 2007

World Championship results

PDC

*2007: Third round (lost to

2–4) (sets)

References

External links

Profile and stats on Darts Database
1965 births Living people South African darts players Professional Darts Corporation associate players Sportspeople from Cape Town {{SouthAfrica-sport-bio-stub