Adam Lipscombe is clearly enjoying his first spell as a PDC Tour Card holder. During the Midlands Darts Charity Golf Day at Drayton Manor, the Englishman spoke candidly about his season, his goals for the rest of the year and the challenge of balancing a professional darts career with a full-time job.
Lipscombe has gained considerably more confidence in his darts over the past few months. The Portsmouth-based player feels his game has developed further recently, even if the results to match are sometimes still lacking. "My game's in a good place. I've been averaging well and practising well, but sometimes you need those runs and they don't come. But yeah, it's getting there," said Lipscombe to Online Darts. Sitting on the cusp of keeping his Tour Card already, Lipscombe sees that as the main goal for the coming months and said that while he's not putting too much pressure on himself he sees it being one step away. "I'm on the cusp, mate, yeah. That is probably the goal. If a stage event goes well and I make a good run, then it's pretty much guaranteed. I'm not really putting too much pressure on myself at the moment. I don't want to keep looking at rankings and stuff. I haven't really looked at them for a while."
Beating Gerwyn Price he admitted perhaps has been the highlight so far of his PDC run which started late on when he was called back at Q-School to top the list up and he managed to go on and win a Tour Card. "Probably, mate. To be honest with you, everything has been a highlight. It's all been a bit of a whirlwind, but yeah, it's going well. I like it."
As a result, he has been a bit starstruck throughout at where he has gone and what he has achieved including with Adrian Lewis. "It was a bit weird at first. Dan Dawson asked me this as well. He said, 'Were you a bit starstruck at the beginning?' I said, 'Not really. Not until I met Adrian Lewis.' I'd never met him until the weekend at an exhibition in Bournemouth. Jason embarrassed me a little bit in front of him and I went a bit red-faced. I didn't know what to say. My missus was laughing at me. It's like meeting someone you grew up watching. That was probably the biggest thing for me so far, meeting Adrian Lewis. Obviously he's not on the tour anymore, so that was really good."
Returning to Ally Pally is also a potential big deal with Lipscombe admitting that he won't be making the same mistakes twice in hiring a limo and doing everything he did first time around. "Making it the first time was a big thing for me. I had a lot of surprises. My mate got me a limo. If I do it again, he won't be doing that again! But you never know if you're going to make it again, so it was a good thing. In my first year I got there, got to play, made the Last 16 and missed my chances to go further. All day I was absolutely worried about it. It was gut-wrenching. Then when I got there it was even worse. I was thinking, 'I need to sort myself out.' Once I got up on stage I was alright and settled down after the first set, but I felt I was a bit too far gone by then. Still, I think I put on a good little showing, so it wasn't too bad." But he still also works full-time alongside darts and said that he wants to get to a point where he doesn't need to anymore but it is difficult. "When I was younger I gave it up for a long time and then came back after about a five-and-a-half-year gap. Now I'm a bit older, I've bought a house and I've been working for my company for 14 years. It is hard to juggle it all. Hopefully it can get to the point where I can give up work, although I don't know if I'd want to because I've been with them for so long. I'm a big creature of habit."