Scott Mitchell is taking on the world of darts this year in the PDC, BDO and WDF

Scott Mitchell is going to be omnipresent across the world of darts this year as he plans to compete in PDC, BDO and WDF events.

The 2015 BDO world champion attempted the leap across the darting divide this year but missed out on a PDC Tour Card at Q School over the grueling four-day event in Wigan.

This was another kick in the teeth for the 49-year-old after he fell agonisingly short at the World Championship, losing in the semi-finals to eventual champion Wayne Warren. However, the negatives have been transformed into positives as his cracking start to the Challenge Tour has opened up the entire darting landscape for him.

Scotty Dog won the second of the first four Challenge Tour events, and a run to the last 16 in the fourth has taken him to the top of the Challenge Tour Order of Merit. This allows him to take a spot in ProTour events if any Tour Card holders drop out, which he will be doing in the first ProTour event of the season on 8 February.

Not having a Tour Card, but topping the Challenge Tour rankings leaves Mitchell in the privileged position of being free to play ProTour, Challenge Tour, BDO and upcoming WDF events, and he plans on taking full advantage.

‘It can be a blessing in disguise not getting the card, because there is more on offer and opportunities open to you,’ Mitchell told Metro.co.uk.

‘Yes I’m planning to [play in BDO events].

‘The WDF stuff is a bit vague but I think it will come to fruition and I’ll play in them, definitely. I’m in that position where I can so I will. I’ll be balancing the WDF, BDO and PDC stuff.’

The last month has been a bit of a whirlwind for the veteran, who has seen his plans for the year change significantly thanks to the wins and losses on the oche.

It is going to be an incredibly busy 2020 for the beef farmer from Dorset, but he is looking forward to the challenges ahead.

‘It’s very easy to get a little bit carried away with it, really,’ Scott continued. ‘At the Worlds, if you’d have told me I was going to get to the semi-finals before I went, I’d have took that.

‘Then to then lose out in the semi-finals, it’s the worst game to lose, so it’s a strange one, but I’d have took it at the start of the week.

‘If you told me I was going to be in the top averages at Q School but not got a card, I probably wouldn’t have took that, I’d have rather been the lowest average and had a card.

‘But I was still playing well so I didn’t really have anything to worry about. You just try to take that form into Challenge Tour and luckily enough on Challenge Tour 2 it all went well.

‘I didn’t pay £450 to come to Q School to do the Challenge Tour, I came to get the card and unfortunately fell short.

‘But then you have to change your plans so I came home that Monday, changed my calendar to put all the Challenge Tours in, go to that, win one and get to the last 16 of another and I’ve got to change my calendar again.

‘It took me about five hours to sort my calendar out after not getting a card and then the Challenge Tour win and all of a sudden it’s all change again. I’ve been trying to free up all the ProTours between now and April so if a spot becomes available I can take it.

‘That was what I was trying to do in the first place, so it’s a bit like getting in through the back door, but that’s fine with me.

‘I came home from Q School thinking I’d love to win a Challenge Tour event and attend a ProTour event, they were the goals for the year and I’ve done them in a week.

‘If you set yourself realistic goals then they can happen. I wasn’t daft enough to go to Q School and think “I want to be PDC world champion in five years” or anything like that, that was never the plan, it was all shorter term than that. I wanted the card and when that didn’t happen it was the Challenge Tour.

‘I’ve set new goals now, I want to win another Challenge Tour and win a game on the ProTour, keep it very simple. [So you’re not thinking about the Matchplay yet?] No, no, no. Never run before you can walk, I leave that to others.’

Mitchell is relishing the challenge, but it is an extreme amount of work ahead of him as he is taking on every darts event he can get involved in alongside running his beef farm in Ripley, Dorset.

The hours he put in over the first Challenge Tour weekend were a sign of things to come, squeezing in a few hours feeding cows in between commitments on the oche.

‘I’m still running the farm,’ Scott explained. ‘It’s lovely when it’s all going right to run off and be a pro player, and that would be great, but at the moment I’ve still got to concentrate on the farm at home and there’s other things to do other than darts. That’s why it makes life very complicated.

‘It’s every day. From the Challenge Tour last week, that was lovely, but I got home at about midday on Monday and I was out feeding cattle and everything till about 5.30pm, then I had to go off to an exhibition in the evening in Southampton.

‘I left Wigan at 5am, got home, did four or five hours on the farm, then straight out again, got home about 1am after the exhibition which was booked three or four months ago.’

The Challenge Tour is aptly named as the weekends are seriously challenging, cramming in four tournaments into just two days.

Playing in giant open events in the BDO for years, Mitchell is used to endurance battles and his hard-working attitude means it is not an issue.

‘The days were long but that wasn’t an issue with the Challenge Tour, it was just getting up the next morning that was the tough one.

‘They are challenging, quite brutal. Having only done one, I’ll know more about it when I’ve done two, I won the second event and it was about 11.45pm when we left the room and we had to be back in and registered by 9.30am.

‘I didn’t want a celebratory pint, I was too shattered. I just wanted a bite to eat and then get my backside to bed so I could get up the next morning.

‘It is a long old slog and it is tough, but it was alright, I didn’t feel too bad. I played terrible in the first won, but I got a last 16 in the fourth comp, so it wasn’t an issue.’

The BDO stalwart has exciting times ahead of him in the PDC, but has not left the older organisation behind just yet as he is going to play their events when he can.

Scott picked up just £5,000 for his run to the semi-finals at The O2, but admits that the money was secondary to him as he was there for the glory of winning another World Championship.

‘To be honest, I wasn’t expecting anything,’ he said. ‘I knew it was going to be cut, I didn’t have a clue what it was going to be. I knew the further the went the more you got, obviously.

‘For me, I’ve got a star on my shirt that I won £100,000 for, but I haven’t got much of the £100,000 left. You get taxed on it, all the other things happen with it, you don’t always end up with all the money you see on the cheque.

‘I’ve still got the tractor I bought and I’ll always have the star.’

On the BDO’s future, Mitchell is just as unsure as anyone: ‘Who knows? I can’t predict, I can’t say, that’s the honest truth.’