BDO Career
Beaton made his World Championship debut in 1992, at a time when the world darts championship was still a unified tournament. He lost in the first round to Chris Johns, but he was encouraged by his performance in the same tournament in 1993 when he achieved a huge upset win over the tournament favourite and former world champion, Dennis Priestley, and he also beat another former world champion in Bob Anderson, before losing in the semi-final to Alan Warriner. He became a full-time professional later in 1993 at a time after the split, which saw the WDC players banned from all BDO tournaments - and Beaton went on to win the prestigious Winmau World Masters, beating Les Wallace in the final.
After the WDC (now PDC) players were expelled from all BDO tournaments in April 1993, it left Beaton as the top seeded player for the 1994 and 1995 BDO world championships, but he lost in the first round both times, to Nick Gedney and Dave Askew respectively, both times losing 2-3 after leading 2-0. This left some to wonder if Beaton had begun to rest on his laurels. But in 1996, he finally delivered at the BDO world championships, beating Co Stompé, John Part, Martin Adams, Andy Fordham and then Richie Burnett in the final to clinch the BDO World Championship.
When he defended his world title in 1997, Beaton was within the width of the Double 10 wire of reaching the final, but he lost to Marshall James in a tight semi final match.
Beaton won many Open titles during his career in BDO tournaments including the Dutch, Danish, Belgian and Swedish Opens.
Beaton continued to play in the BDO version of the World Championship until 2001 (reaching the semi-final in 1997 and quarter-final in 1998) before switching to the Professional Darts Corporation in 2002.
Read more about this topic: Steve Beaton
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