Quarkonia and the pole mass

The pole mass of a heavy quark is ambiguous by an amount of order ${\Lambda }_{\mathrm{QCD}}.$ We show that the heavy-quark potential, $V\left(r\right),$ is similarly ambiguous, but that the total static energy, ${2M}_{\mathrm{pole}}+V\left(r\right),$ is unambiguous when expressed in terms of a short-distance mass. This implies that the extraction of a short-distance mass from the quarkonium spectrum is free of an ambiguity of order ${\Lambda }_{\mathrm{QCD}},$ in contrast with the pole mass.