Question: What is the difference between a Master Player and a Pro Player?

Answer: This could be confusing, but here goes. To be considered a Pro, I believe you must be a Master first, or something like that. I don�t know any Pros that aren�t considered Masters first. I do question some of the players listed on the various Pro lists.

You are definitely a Pro if you have a sponsor that pays your way to different dart events and that is your only job. Not many in the US can do this. Most dart players in the US have jobs and play mostly on the weekends or at major tournaments.

In some sports, if you make money at it, you are considered a Pro. If that were the case in darts, any player who ever cashed in a tournament would be a Pro,even my wife.

Scary thought, but if you take money as a college athlete, you are considered a Pro and cannot play as an amateur any longer. On second thought, maybe you are a Pro first, and then become a Master.

There are golf Pros who have never won a tournament, same with bowling. The National Dart Association says anyone over a 3.5 in cricket or 30.0 in 501 is considered a Master. What a joke, I think.

I would say, move it up to a 4.0; if you can hit four marks average per round, I think you are a master.

Are you a Pro? Depends, go win a major tournament and see how fast you go on the Pro list. You could have one great day or get carried by your partner, and bang, you are a PRO. Once you are a Pro, good luck not being a Pro ever again.

We have a resident �Known Pro� in Arizona, named Brad Halley. For some reason, Brad has carried the Scarlet Letter of Known Pro for about 15 years. This means any tournament that he goes to, he is on the Pro list and must play Pro.

In the late 80�s and early 90�s, Brad was one of the best players in this country. Good enough to represent the US in Germany and win for Team USA. Brad is no schmo, but he will be the first to tell you he is not as good as he used to be. Still, he is on everyone�s Pro list and will be until 2009.

I also hear people say, �Oh, that guys is a Master player, he plays in the Master League.� I hear of tournaments not letting players play because they are a �Master Player�.

We have about 70�80 regular players that play in the Masters A and Masters B throughout the year. Only about 20 are above a 3.5 and 10 above a 4.0. They are Master�s League players and shouldn�t be penalized because they want to play the better players and imProve their games.

Back to the Pro thing. I believe that at last count, we had 12 players on the Arachnid Pro list, including yours truly (Stop laughing!). Of those twelve, I would say zero are really Pros. Yes a big fat zero.

They could be Pros and they are great shooters, but they have real jobs, they don�t play darts for a living. It is their hobby, not a way to put food on their plates. Who can raise a family on money won in darts?

Heck, you might as well go pan for gold. I hear guys all the time saying they used to be a Pro bowler or Pro pool player or Pro golfer. I hadn�t ever seen one of those guys on ESPN or channel 3 for that matter.

I won a state championship in baseball, a national championship in softball, I�ve coached state champs in sports, won money in the state bowling tournament, won golf tournaments, heck even won a state trivia contest. Now that I think about it, I�ve been a Pro in many different things, but a Master at only one; I have to add those to my r�sum�.

When it comes down to it, I would rather be a Master dart player than a Pro. Reason: I know a lot of people who a Professionals and are bad at their jobs, so if you are a Master you had to earn it, I guess� These are just my opinions and I could be wrong, but I doubt it.