Country Spotlight: Jamaica – A Darts Story That Goes Back Further Than You Think
My Country Spotlight journey remains in the Caribbean this week, and after looking at the Bahamas, I've moved on to one of the most famous islands in the region.
Jamaica.
Jamaica is known around the world for athletics, cricket, music and a sporting culture that has produced remarkable success for a country of fewer than three million people.
Darts probably isn't the first sport most people associate with Jamaica.
But this is one of those Country Spotlights where I started digging and discovered that the story goes back much further than I expected.
Long before the modern CDLC Tour existed, a Jamaican player was winning one of British darts' major open tournaments.
More than 20 years ago, Jamaica was represented at the PDC World Championship.
And now a new generation is trying to put Jamaican darts back onto the international stage.
Al Hedman – Jamaica's Darts Pioneer
The first name has to be Al Hedman.
Born in Kingston in 1953, Hedman played professionally across the BDO and PDC systems and produced one particularly significant result in 1995.
He won the British Open, defeating Andy Fordham in the final. The tournament's historical results list Hedman as the 1995 champion, between previous winner Steve Beaton and 1996 winner Roland Scholten.
That's a serious piece of Jamaican darts history.
But Hedman wasn't finished there.
He later moved into the PDC and qualified for the 2003 PDC World Championship at the Circus Tavern.
Hedman was one of four players to qualify through the PDPA route and faced former world champion Bob Anderson in the preliminary Last 40 round.
Anderson won 4–0, with Hedman averaging 76.36.
So when discussing Jamaica's ambitions in modern darts, it's worth remembering something important.
Jamaica has already been represented at a PDC World Championship.
Al Hedman did it more than two decades ago.
He is also the older brother of England great Deta Hedman, who was herself born in Jamaica. But Deta represented England internationally, so for the purposes of this series I'm not counting her as a Jamaican player.
A Long Wait For The Next Generation
What Jamaica hasn't yet managed is to turn Hedman's achievements into a continuous stream of players reaching the biggest stages.
That's hardly unusual across the Caribbean.
Geography, travel costs and the lack of a regular professional pathway have historically made things much more difficult for players from the region.
The creation of the Championship Darts Latin America and Caribbean Tour has started to change that.
And Jamaica hasn't simply sent players to compete on it.
Jamaica has hosted it.
Montego Bay Becomes A Darts Hub
In July 2024, the CDLC Tour headed to Montego Bay for its opening double-header.
Rashad Sweeting won the first event and Norman Madhoo won the second, with some of the strongest players from Latin America and the Caribbean competing on Jamaican soil.
The events formed part of a much bigger period of darts activity in Jamaica, alongside the 2024 Caribbean Cup.
The Jamaica Anti-Doping Commission described Jamaica as becoming the epicentre of darts in Latin America and the Caribbean, with events centred around Montego Bay.
For a developing darts country, hosting matters.
It gives local players an opportunity to compete against stronger regional opposition without the cost of travelling across the Caribbean or into Central and South America.
And Jamaica now has players beginning to make an impression.
Jonathon Heron – A Jamaican CDLC Breakthrough
One of the most important is Jonathon Heron.
Heron doesn't currently appear in my Q4QS database, so I can't give him the same statistical treatment as some of the other players in this series.
But his wider record deserves inclusion.
In April 2025, Heron produced a breakthrough run on the CDLC Tour in Panama City.
He defeated Brazil's Artur Valle 6–5 in the semi-final, becoming the first Jamaican to reach a CDLC Main Tour final.
His run eventually ended against the Bahamas' Rashad Sweeting, but reaching that final represented an important step for modern Jamaican darts.
Heron has remained part of the regional picture since.
And while he hasn't yet followed Al Hedman onto the PDC World Championship stage, his results demonstrate that Jamaican players can challenge at the business end of modern CDLC events.
Vasseon Roye – What The Q4QS Database Tells Us
The Jamaican player I can examine in much greater detail is Vasseon Roye.
And there are some interesting results here.
Roye has reached the six-event threshold required to receive an official Q4QS Average.
Across 13 matches, he has seven wins and six defeats, giving him a 53.8% win rate.
His overall match average is 58.90 and his official Q4QS Average is 58.34, with a best performance of 65.38.
Those figures don't immediately jump off the page.
The opponents he's beaten make things considerably more interesting.
Roye Can Produce An Upset
Roye's most significant Q4QS result came against a player we've already featured heavily in this series.
Norman Madhoo.
The Guyanese veteran is a multiple World Championship participant and remains one of the strongest players on the CDLC circuit.
Roye beat him 6–5.
He has also beaten Bahamas player Robin Albury 6–4 while averaging his personal best of 65.38, and defeated Chile's George Patterson 6–2 with a 62.49 average.
His losses also show the level he's competing against.
They include Rashad Sweeting, Guillermo Soto and Shane Sawyer.
Roye isn't yet consistently producing the averages of Sweeting or Jesús Salate.
But he has demonstrated that on the right day he can beat established regional opposition.
That's an important starting point.
Fitzroy Ellison – Another Jamaican Name
Fitzroy Ellison gives us another current Jamaican player to follow.
The sample here is much smaller.
My Q4QS database contains only five matches across three events, so Ellison doesn't yet qualify for an official Q4QS Average.
He has won two and lost three, with an overall average of 55.82 and a best of 62.27.
His two recorded victories came against Randy Cruz and Kevin Hinton.
The Hinton match was particularly encouraging, with Ellison averaging 60.66 in a 6–3 victory.
He also produced his best recorded performance against Shane Sawyer, averaging 62.27 in a 6–4 defeat.
It's nowhere near enough data to make a definitive judgement about his level.
But it gives Jamaica another player competing regularly enough to begin appearing in the Q4QS numbers.
Evon Faulkner – Another Sign Of Participation
Evon Faulkner also appears in my 2026 database.
There are only three recorded matches across three events, so I'm deliberately not going to draw conclusions from her averages or results.
That's simply too small a sample.
What matters more for this article is that she is another Jamaican player appearing on the CDLC circuit.
And that's something I've increasingly noticed while producing these Country Spotlights.
A country's future prospects aren't necessarily determined by its best player.
Depth matters.
The Difference Between Jamaica And The Bahamas
The contrast with last week's country is interesting.
The Bahamas currently has the standout modern player.
Rashad Sweeting has won CDLC titles, topped tournaments on home soil and reached Alexandra Palace.
Jamaica doesn't currently have an equivalent.
But Jamaica has something the Bahamas can't claim.
Its World Championship history stretches all the way back to 2003, through Al Hedman.
So these are two Caribbean countries at different points in their darts stories.
The Bahamas has the stronger current headline.
Jamaica has the longer history.
And now Jamaica is trying to create its next chapter.
Why Jamaica Matters
There's another reason Jamaica interests me.
The potential scale is considerable.
Jamaica has a population approaching three million and an extraordinary sporting culture.
That doesn't automatically translate into darts success, of course.
But the infrastructure around Caribbean darts is now much stronger than it was during Al Hedman's career.
There is a regional Tour.
There are pathways towards the PDC World Championship.
There is a World Cup qualifying route.
And major regional darts events have already been staged in Jamaica itself.
The opportunity exists in a way that it didn't before.
Looking Ahead
The challenge is turning participation into sustained results.
Heron's CDLC final was encouraging.
Roye has demonstrated that he can beat players such as Norman Madhoo, Robin Albury and George Patterson.
Ellison is competing.
Faulkner adds another name to the Jamaican presence.
And somewhere behind them may be the next player capable of making a bigger breakthrough.
Al Hedman reached the PDC World Championship in 2003.
More than two decades later, Jamaica is still waiting for someone to follow him.
But for perhaps the first time, there is now a genuine regional structure through which that player can emerge.
The pathway is there.
The next challenge for Jamaican darts is finding the player who can take it.
Q4QS Darts Nation Rating
Current Strength: 6/10
Participation & Depth: 6.5/10
International Achievement: 7/10
Future Potential: 8/10
Overall Q4QS Nation Rating: 6.75/10
I'd put Jamaica at 6.75/10 at this stage.
Its current playing strength doesn't yet match the Bahamas, Argentina or some of the stronger countries we've visited.
But Jamaica gets considerable credit for its history.
Al Hedman won the British Open and reached the PDC World Championship.
Montego Bay has hosted the CDLC.
Jonathon Heron has reached a CDLC final.
And Vasseon Roye has shown that Jamaica still has players capable of beating established names around the Caribbean.
The intriguing question is whether those pieces can eventually come together.
Al Hedman wrote Jamaica's first chapter in international darts.
More than 30 years after his British Open victory, Jamaica is looking for somebody to write the next one.
