Former Lakeside champion Beaton headlined the list of 16 automatic qualifiers from UK Qualifying School, after registering five consecutive wins at Arena MK.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Beaton was joined by , Jeffrey de Zwaan, Cristo Reyes and Boris Krcmar to advance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Day Two of the 2026 PDC Qualifying Schools saw First Stage continue in Milton Keynes and Kalkar, as players compete across the week for the opportunity to claim a coveted two-year Tour Card for 2026-27.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
First Stage, taking place from January 5-7, sees players from across the globe attempting to qualify to compete in the Final Stage, where Tour Cards will be on offer from January 8-11.
The 61-year-old Beaton, who resigned his Tour Card in January 2025, conceded just seven legs across the afternoon, as he sets his sights on a return to the professional circuit.
Beaton will be joined at Final Stage by former Tour Card Holders Harry Ward and Ciaran Teehan, while Scotland\u2019s David Sharp averaged 104.46 in his last 32 clash to progress in style.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At European Qualifying School, former World Matchplay semi-finalist De Zwaan raced through to Final Stage with a series of impressive displays, culminating with a 101 average in his winner-takes-all tie against Mylo Michiels.
Spanish star Reyes and Croatian trailblazer Krcmar – who competed at the recent World Darts Championship – later booked their spots in Final Stage, along with Canadian veteran David Cameron, who also featured at Alexandra Palace last month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was also a memorable day for Jamie Owens, who produced the first nine-darter on the PDC circuit in 2026 during his round two clash against Travis Baur, before departing the tournament in round three.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
First Stage is being held across three days, with the last 16 players from each day qualifying automatically for Final Stage, while the remaining places in Final Stage – featuring 128 players at each venue \u2013 are decided from a Ranking List, with one point being awarded per win.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At any point during Qualifying School, if two or more players are tied on points, they will be separated in the Ranking List by (in order until they can be split): leg difference, legs won, DartConnect average based on their totals in their matches. Results in all matches played at the relevant stage are included in this countback.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
RESULTS Former Lakeside champion Beaton headlined the list of 16 automatic qualifiers from UK Qualifying School, after registering five<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":7634,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[59],"class_list":["post-7631","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-newsbeat","tag-darts"],"aioseo_notices":[],"featured_image_urls":{"full":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Steve-Beaton_compressed.jpg",2002,1127,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Steve-Beaton_compressed-150x150.jpg",150,150,true],"medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Steve-Beaton_compressed-300x169.jpg",300,169,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Steve-Beaton_compressed-768x432.jpg",640,360,true],"large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Steve-Beaton_compressed-1024x576.jpg",640,360,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Steve-Beaton_compressed-1536x865.jpg",1536,865,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Steve-Beaton_compressed.jpg",2002,1127,false],"morenews-large":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Steve-Beaton_compressed-825x575.jpg",825,575,true],"morenews-medium":["https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Steve-Beaton_compressed-590x410.jpg",590,410,true]},"author_info":{"info":["admin"]},"category_info":"Newsbeat<\/a>","tag_info":"Newsbeat","comment_count":"0","jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/Steve-Beaton_compressed.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7631","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7631"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7631\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7633,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7631\/revisions\/7633"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7634"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.infinitysport.asia\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
UK Qualifying School
First Stage Day Two
Last 32<\/strong>: Niall Culleton 5-2 Sam Jackson, Jack Aldridge 5-1 Ultan McDyer, Steve Beaton 5-1 Darren Armstrong, Shaun Carroll 5-3 Tommy Morris, David Sharp 5-2 Jamie Kelling, Harry Ward 5-3 Jarred Cole, Damien Grimes 5 -2 James Richardson, Harrison Leigh 5-2 Alan Norris, Stephen Rosney 5-1 Damien O’Driscoll, Ryan Furness 5-1 Jack Male, Ciaran Teehan 5-1 Dale Gadsby, Thomas Cromwell 5-1 Danny Trueman, Chas Barstow 5-3 Adam Leek, Alfie Busby 5-0 Andrew Cass, Daniel Ayres 5-0 John Henderson, Jordan-Lee Rawlings 5-0 Aden Kirk
European Qualifying School
First Stage Day Two
Last 32<\/strong>: Pal Szekely 5-1 Yorick Hofkens, Damian Vetjens 5-2 Marcel Otter, Nandor Major 5-3 Bruno Stoeckli, Davy Proosten 5-0 Robin Pietsch, Dennis Van Bergen 5-3 Ron Meulenkamp, Ruben Lopez 5-2 Wesley van Trijp, Zvonimir Lesic 5-0 Maikel Verberk, Jason Riedtke 5-2 Jonny Pedersen, Jeffrey Sparidaans 5-2 Stef Kosters, David Cameron 5-1 Liam Maendl-Lawrance, Jeffrey De Zwaan 5-0 Mylo Michiels, Bjorn Quoiffy 5-3 Jesus Noguera, Luitsen Elzinga 5-2 Patrick Bulen, Cristo Reyes 5-2 Marc Spalt, Boris Krcmar 5-2 Dustin Straver, Jeroen Caron 5-1 Richard Balogh<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"