Joe Cullen has enjoyed the best year of his darting career.
Now he has been rewarded with a new long-term deal and a prestigious promotion to Maestro at Team Unicorn.
"Together we have a great relationship and a great partnership. To be become a Maestro is reward for the hard work I have put in and it would be great to deliver more titles for Unicorn. That's the big aim certainly!" Cullen said.
The 28-year-old has enjoyed a stellar year, winning a spot inside the world's top 20 for the first time and he tasted victory in two big Players Championship tournaments.
His breakthrough first PDC title came in April when he beat Daryl Gurney 6-5 in a thrilling PC Final. The Unicorn ace followed that with a second Players Championship title in July. Again it was in Barnsley, and this time he beat Austrian Zoran Lerchbacher 6-4.
Hi again! It’s been a while, but now seems like a good time for a new UniBlog to go with the new, sparkly, Unicorn Group website whose “PlayWithTheBest” title doubly resonates with me. Not only is helping players do just that my aim when designing a dart or recommending a set-up, but also, in my long-gone competitive racquet sport days, I was lucky to have had the chance to play with some of the best and most prodigiously talented individuals of the era.
I thus had the perfect opportunity to observe at first hand how “best” and “most prodigiously talented” were not necessarily coincident. Prodigious talent is obviously a gift, but I wonder if sometimes it can also be a hurdle to overcome. If playing a sport comes all too easily at first, is it more difficult later to knuckle down to the hours of potentially tedious practice (and, in many events, arduous physical training) required for even the very gifted to fulfil their ultimate potential?