It is quite a coup for New Zealand sport and the down-to-earth Taylor is more than happy to be playing away from darts' usual high-profile track.
Taylor's record stands out like a dart in a pin box. He has been nudged into second place on the rankings by Dutch prodigy Michael van Gerwen but the 54-year-old Englishman has dominated a sport like virtually no other.
Sixteen world titles -- the last in 2013 -- is the enormous tip of a significant iceberg. He won eight consecutively and appeared in 14 straight finals. Fourteen of his world titles are the Professional Darts Corporation (PDC) version -- the next highest winners have two.
He was central to a makeover that turned low-brow darts into an unlikely phenomenon of packed and noisy arenas, surging TV ratings and upper-class prizemoney.
Taylor's personal beginnings were humble, his darts career not so in one overblown respect. He was boosted by a significant start-up fund from Eric Bristow, the notorious loudmouth who ran a pub in Taylor's native Stoke-on-Trent.
Bristow was darts' first TV star, who initially saw Taylor as a sort of attack puppy he could let loose to annoy other players. No one has ever challenged Bristow's larger-than-life charisma but Taylor became the big dog with a bite far greater than Bristow's bark.
Taylor, renowned for his consistent throwing, was so dominant it became hard to work out whether he led the revolution or was the actual revolution.
You can take the dart board out of smoke-filled pubs and clubs of yesteryear, but all the natty tunics and boisterous stadiums in the world won't take the working-class, working-hard story out of Taylor.
When the Herald calls, Taylor -- an only child -- has been up for much of the night, concerned for the health of his mother, Liz, who is in hospital. He is waiting for a call.
In the first few years of his life before Liz joined husband Doug -- a tile maker -- in Stoke's famed pottery factories, the Taylors had no electricity, although a neighbour helped via a lead. Life was certainly a financial struggle. Taylor first played darts at 11, and loved working out the mathematical scenarios. His early pay packet numbers weren't nearly so interesting.
He started as a sheet metal worker, and juggled his darts career with three jobs: fixing cars at night, in a pub and as a factory engineer.
When asked why he emerged so far ahead of the darts pack, Taylor says: "I was very, very, very dedicated. I used to watch the players going out at night, to casinos and night clubs, while I'm sitting in the house and sometimes even practising at 12 or 1. That's me, the way I am from the upbringing.
"You couldn't have a day off with my mother. You'd have to get out of bed and do your jobs -- she threw water over me once. She didn't want a lazy son, she wouldn't have lazy people. I'd be working seven days a week for six months and I'm still a lazy little s*** in her eyes.
"We had no money but we were happy. You go out there and earn a living -- that's what you do. The toughness of the upbringing makes you into a winner. Most of your best boxers come from a poor background. They have something to fight for.
"When I started ... darts was on a downward spiral, and the players went ahead and enjoyed themselves. There were rivalries but Eric and Lowie [Bristow and John Lowe] were so advanced they didn't have any pressure until I came along."
Snooker had been Britain's living room favourite in the 1980s, with personalities who hit the front and back pages. Darts was about to prick its bubble, to a degree unimaginable and around the world.
In the early 1990s, sixteen leading players broke away from the staid British Darts Organisation and with promoter Barry Hearn driving the show, it was showtime.
"Prize money was rubbish when I started out," says Taylor.
"The world championships were the big one but after that, you more or less had to get to the finals to get your money back after paying for travel and hotel bills.
"It's taken 20 years but we've done it. There is $16 million prize money this year and $20 million next year. The viewing figures are so high that everyone is after us now. The average age of people coming to watch is 18 to 27, which is the market sponsors are after.
"A tournament on ITV4 a couple of weeks ago got the highest ratings since the channel began.
"It's a working class sport that people love and it's so easy to follow."
A chunk of the ratings are down to Taylor, and a lot of the prize money -- about $12 million -- has gone into his pocket. Not that he flashes it about.
Visitors to his Stoke address report a modern but modest house considering his earnings, although a profile in the Independent described his living room as a "minimalist's nightmare" -- filled with cherubs, cuckoo clocks and a lot of eclectic else. He portrays his success as coming at a cost.
Taylor blamed dedication to darts for the still-painful break-up of his marriage, with divorce finalised this year.
Life on the road takes a toll, but it's hard to tell if Taylor is really winding down, as he allegedly intends, or winding up.
The game's greatest player still drives -- actually, he is driven -- to league games around Britain five nights a week.
"My driver thinks he's professional but I've done more u-turns and three-point turns than anyone in the world even though we've got the world's biggest sat-nav," he jokes.
"Driving up and down the motorways in the UK is doing my head in, quite frankly. The traffic is 10 times worse these days. We tend to travel at night now.
"It's more or less 12 months a year and you just cope. It's your job. You get on with it although I can ease back now and let the Michael van Gerwens take over my mantle. I'm a grand-dad, I've a family to look after, and I lead a very simple life. I don't want anything off anyone ... a cup of coffee, my television, and leave me alone basically."
Easier said than done. Hearn and others keep the pressure on, because Taylor is central to the darts empire. He will still play the league next year, and is desperate for more world titles, yes, plural.
He can't wait to visit New Zealand, and wants very much to be part of establishing a world series tournament in Auckland -- the world's best are set to play an inaugural event in August.
Liz Taylor's boy is not one to give up easily.
"The young players haven't got a clue what it was like. When I first won prize money you would go through the house buying curtains, blankets, towels. Everything we had was second-hand.
"Van Gerwen is succeeding at the minute but whether there is the longevity ... I doubt it.
"He'll never win as much as I've done and I don't think anyone will. The tough world I came out of gave me the endurance, and that's what it is all about."
- Chris Rattue of the New Zealand Herald
