Can Earl retire now and live comfortably?
Did he save any money?
I posted a public inquiry asking my next door neighbor how much money he had saved for retirement, and if he had spent his adult life foolishly working as a [insert job here].
When my nose heals, and my concussion gets better, and my eyes un-cross, I'll let you know what he replied.
If I can remember...
Meanwhile, I discovered Chen holds the AZB Money Leaderboard #1 spot with winnings of $92,671 year to date. The PGA Tour Money Leader winnings year to date is $6,355,725, which computes to 68 times the pool leader's winnings year to date. If you look all the way down to the PGA #245, his $93k YTD winnings are about equivalent to pool's #1 Chen at $92k plus. The person at pool's #245 is actually about two hundred bucks in the hole for the year - so far.
Winnings do not tell the whole story, though. It does not tell the net income after expenses. With pool players living in their cars, jumping out of second story windows to walk the motel bill, staying with friends, GFs, moms, and frenemies, and occasionally begging for a bite, their expenses could be much lower than golfers, who can afford to stay in a Motel Six or better, and eat almost every day.
Then there is the equipment expense. Golfers have to wear funny expensive sansa-belt slacks, and spikey shoes, and two-fers or whatever those schoolboy knickers are called, and goofy Scottish hats, or hats with paid sponsor advertising on them just like their shirts and shoes and socks and sweat band and wrist bands.
Pool players can wear just about what ever they want to wear, and they do. Blue jeans, with and without holes, make a fashion statement, as do their Black Sabbath t-shirts, or, for national and international events, baggy black slacks and un-ironed white shirts, with collars and a borrowed clip-on tie set the pool players' Salvation Army-like sartorial tone. For a real expense-saving idea, pool players can choose to wear those comfy plastic shower shoes, or rubber flip-flops. The chance of getting an ugly, incurable green toenail fungus is really very small, right?
Unlike golf, pool offers the income equalizers called 'savers'. That is where the final two players collude to split the top pot according a secret agreement between themselves, rather than following the payout schedule set by the promoter. The 'saver' concept can even be extended to whole groups of players, thus negating the accuracy of a sports betting pool, and eliminating for all time pool's ability to get a TV contract or big-money sponsors.
Yes, Virginia, there is big money to be made in pool and billiard sports, just be sure to invest in certain ball manufacturers, and cloth and pool table manufacturers, and avoid depending on tournament winnings for your retirement savings - because no matter what, a player's entry fee of a thousand dollars that *might* win five thousand - or might win nothing - is not good investment - unless it's someone else's money, then go for it.