Overpaid? Most earnings aren’t on a par with Rose’s
ARE professional golfers wildly overpaid? As we enter the silly season of lavish appearance fees and guaranteed prize money, a period that has seen Justin Rose make £2million already, it would be easy to succumb to the idea.
But judging any profession by the lucky few who make it to the summit is always a skewed notion.
For a better perspective, look at the man currently holding down 115th place in the Race to Dubai. In other words, the final spot to ensure playing privileges for next year. Jamie Elson was a direct contemporary of some of the high rollers in the UK game. He played in the same winning Walker Cup team as Graeme McDowell and Luke Donald and turned pro with the same dreams. Five years later, he was selling coffee machines and dist ributing leaflets in supermarkets. Now he is back on the ladder, plying his trade on the second best tour in world golf. Over the past three years he has made around £430,000, which sounds great until you strip out £100,000 for hotels, caddie fees and the like.
Still, excellent money in the real world, of course, and certainly a better rate than selling coffee machines. But not wildly overpaid.
So that’s what you earn if you are the 115th best player in Europe.
Below Elson are all the wannabes on the Challenge Tour who are good enough to routinely shoot scores in the 60s and yet struggle to pay the mortgage. And below them are thousands more playing for their own money each week in smallscale pro events knowing they need to finish in the top six or so to make any dosh at all.
Yes, make it into the world’s top 50 and you can have a holiday home in an exotic location and your pick of the best luxury motors.
Make it into the top 10 and you are earning absolute fortunes.
But there are a lot of really good pro golfers out there who are not overpaid, never mind wildly so. IS OUR favourite former knife salesman about to suffer the cruellest cut of all? This time last year we were bringing to your attention the heartwarming story of Englishman Gary Christian (below), who once did that job — among others — to make ends meet and who had battled on to make it to the most glamorous circuit in world golf for the first time at the age of 40. So, how has he fared in his rookie year on the US Tour? Well, there have certainly been plenty of highlights, as anyone following his entertaining Twitter account can testify. There has been a top-10 finish and he played so well in the first two rounds of the opening FedEx Cup event he got to partner Tiger Woods. But, the bottom line is that a missed halfway cut last week has left Christian in 127th place in the money list, with two events remaining — and only the top 125 keep their cards for next year. What is known, in sporting parlance, as squeaky-bum time.