So it is with Dr Falk Billion who is Europe's leading appraiser and valuer of golf properties and, as such, well accustomed to talking of millions and billions! That's because golf is now a very big business, indeed, and quite definitely the sport with the greatest cumulative land holding of them all.

Even in Ireland we have 440 golf courses. Allowing for 95 of these being nineholers, the average golf course probably occupies 125 acres. That is a grand total of 55,000 acres devoted to golf.

A lot of Croke Parks and Landsdowne Roads would fit into that. Horse racetracks and stud farms combined hardly compare and tennis just isn't at the races at all.

Golf is now a big employer in the sporting and tourism areas with about 50,000 jobs directly affected in the operation of the courses and clubhouses, in the turf grass industry and in hotels which are now so commonly associated with, and substantially dependant on, golf courses.

The real estate investment is difficult to quantify. It's possibly a case for Dr Billion.

We have become accustomed to huge numbers being mentioned in connection with golf courses being bought by developers. Figures from 20million to 100million have been in the press.

Clubs in each of our main cities are sitting on very valuable lands subject to planning permissions.

In Dublin, within the embrace of the M50 and almost describable as inner city as a result, one finds Killiney, Carrickmines, Foxrock, Elm Park, Milltown, Edmondstown, Grange, Clontarf, Sutton, Howth, Portmarnock, Royal Dublin and St Anne's. In Cork the city is out and around Little Island, with Cork Golf Club and Harbour Point located there, along with Monkstown, Douglas, Mahon and Muskerry.

So it goes across the map with Castletroy and Limerick in the city of the latter name, Galway in Salthill, and Belfast fairly bristling with golf properties that developers would kill for.

Take a notional property value of 40million on each of those. Hardly any of them would consider selling for such a paltry sum. Multiply by 30 locations and you arrive at 1,200,000,000. That's a billion plus a lot of change.

Then take the other 400 golf courses and value them at as little as 10,000 an acre and golf 's balance sheet gains a further 500 million.

All this dedicated to people who, in the main, struggle to break 100!

It's a hefty investment in sport and social life but we are worth every penny of it.

Especially as golf has, apart from a very small State intervention here and there, financed itself from top to bottom. It has taken several lifetimes for the game to provide the sporting outlet of a lifetime, the game can be played from soon after the cradle to soon before even a very late grave, for a population which is said to be ageing rapidly.

The service that golf provides to the community is virtually inestimable. It does so much to keep old-timers off the streets and even young folk are kept similarly busy, productive and safe. It's so much better than being a couch potatoe or a football fan rushing from the pub to the match and back again.

There should be a big debate on the lack of government support for the game at a time when so much is being given to other sports and industries.

Maybe Dr Billion, who lives in Munich, could help with thoughts and presentations along these lines if he were asked to do so. His activities cover an impressive range such as construction value, present market value, capitalised cash flow value of the operation, value of hereditary building rights and land lease contracts, pure land value of golf course sites, asset value of golf courses, market value of a golf course designer's name, forced sale value and credit rating value.

That's enough headings to preoccupy an accountant for a while and perhaps best left to that profession to refine.

Meanwhile, lest you think that we created Dr Billion for the purpose of this story be assured he does exist and he has been CEO of the German Golf Association, CEO of a major German golf course development company and co-founder of the German Golf Course Owners' Association.

He has done much for the game and even by the mere fact of his existence and name he has prompted the thoughts in this story. Good day.