Career
He last played on the Personal Digital Cellular pro tour in the Killarney Pro Tour 1 in October 2013 and his last regional match was in the Ireland Players Championship 6 in April 2014. He was once Ireland"s top ranked player. lieutenant marked a successful 12 months for Mick, who reached the final of the PDPA Players Championship in Scotland in November 2005 before qualifying for the Las Vegas Desert Classic the following June.
He knocked out America"s Ray Carver 6-3 in the first round before losing to Wes Newton at the last 16 stage.
The Irishman went down 8-7 to Mark Walsh in the third round at the 2006 United Kingdom Open Darts finals, but bounced back in Las Vegas to come through the qualifiers. He lost in the same round the next year, this time to youngster Kirk Shepherd, who reached the final.
In the United States Open Darts in 2007 he reached the 5th round before losing to Canadian John Participant. In the 2008 Las Vegas Desert Classic, McGowan made a reasonable impression.
He played Terry Jenkins in the first round and lost 6-4 in a tight game.
He also qualified for World Grand Prix finishing Ireland"s number 1 player in the order of merit. He drew Jenkins yet again and was beaten 2-0 in sets. McGowan began sliding down the world rankings in 2009 after a run of bad form led by illness where he was diagnosed with hemochromatosis, where he had too much iron in his blood, 2500 ferritins which was way over the average of 50 ferritins.
He had to go to hospital every week from January to have a pint of blood taken out to thin the iron which affected his practise due to chronic fatigue.
McGowan was given the all-clear on the eve of the 2009 World Grand Prix. In 2010 Mick was defeated by the struggling Wayne Mardle in the United Kingdom Open by 6 legs to 3.
McGowan represented Ireland with William O"Connor at the inaugural Personal Digital Cellular World Cup of Darts in 2010. The pair managed to defeat Slovakia in the first round 6-3 in legs.
They then faced the mighty Australian duo of Simon Whitlock and Paul Nicholson, the numbers 4 and 16 in the world and narrowly lost the match by 6-5.
He played in his second World Cup for Ireland in 2012, again paired with O"Connor and, as in 2010, they reached the second round this time by defeating Malaysia 5–2. They played the same Australian pair as in 2010 next and were whitewashed 0–4. In the rest of 2012 he could not advance beyond the last 64 of any of his events.
McGowan finished the year ranked world number 169, well outside of the top 64 who retain their places on the Personal Digital Cellular tour and he did not have automatic entry into any event in the future.
In the 2015 Tom Kirby Memorial Irish Matchplay final he beat Tom Biggane 6-5 to qualify for the preliminary round of the 2016 Personal Digital Cellular World Championship. Mick will play the 2016 and 2017 seasons.
Personal Digital Cellular
2007: Second round (lost to Philosophy Taylor 1–4)
2008: Second round (lost to Kirk Shepherd 3–4)
2016: First round (lost to Mark Webster 0-3).
