Monk qualified for his first PDC World Championship in 2012 by beating Joe Cullen in the PDPA Qualifier. He was perhaps unlucky with the draw for the first round as he played the winner of the previous weeks Players Championship Finals, Kevin Painter, and was beaten 3–1. In April, he earned a place in the Austrian Darts Open in Vienna by defeating Paul Barham and Daniel Day in the UK qualifier. He played Raymond van Barneveld in the first round and lost 6–4. At the UK Open Monk enjoyed a 9–8 victory over Painter, before losing to Paul Nicholson 9–3 in the last 32. He also qualified for the third European Darts Open with wins over Jack Hill and Chris Mason, but lost to Steve Brown 6–2 in the first round in Düsseldorf. In October, Monk reached the semi-finals of a PDC event for the first time at the 13th Players Championship of the year. He defeated the likes of Dennis Priestley, Roland Scholten and Mark Webster, all of whom have won major titles in the past, before losing 6–1 to Michael van Gerwen. Monk then saw off John Part, Vincent van der Voort and Andy Hamilton, to make the quarter finals of the firth European Tour Event of the year, the Dutch Darts Masters. Monk faced Paul Nicholson and lost 6–1 with an average of just 69.39.