Give me a "W", and I'll give you West Waterford. Give me an "E", and I'll give you Enniscrone. Give me a "B", and I'll give you Beaverstown. What have you got? The virtual proof that no matter where you go in Ireland you will discover a golf club displaying its wears on the web.

Indeed, Irish clubs seem to be more Y2K prepared than many other sporting bodies. Of the 384 clubs affiliated to the Golfing Union of Ireland (who are at www.gui.ie), 99 of the clubs have their own websites and many of these are even in the process of upgrading their sites, while others are getting ready to go on-line. It all amounts to confirmation that many clubs have embraced the technological age. But what are they getting back?

Generally, the vibes are good; but Colm Kelly, the secretary-manager of the Beaufort course outside Killarney, honestly admits that it is hard to quantify exactly what the returns are. "To be perfectly truthful," he says, "the vast bulk of our business comes from the local tour operators and also hotels and guest houses in the area. I'm told we get quite a few hits on the internet, and a lot of our overseas members access the page, but it really is hard to quantify."

Others are more bullish about the enterprise, and all that golfing on the net means in terms of generating business and increasing awareness of the club. St Margaret's Golf and Country Club launched their site three years ago. However, that site has since been upgraded and they are now tied in with Global Golf - www.globalgolf.com - and are riding on the back of that engine.

"Quite innovative," claims Tony Judge, the chief executive at the north county Dublin club of their association with that body. "We can update our page all the time, and the beauty is that we can also put up things like teetimes on the web page, too."

In fact, Judge sees the time when virtually every club in the country will process most bookings through the internet. "We get a lot of queries, particularly from Britain, and many request a brochure. However, when we tell them we're on the web, then that's sufficient and I can nearly see the time when brochures will be a thing of the past," he said.

Some clubs are more imaginative than others, in their design and also in just who they are trying to attract to their sites. For example, Kirkistown Castle in Co Down have an excellent site, while the prize for enterprise surely goes to the Dunfanaghy club in Co Donegal who have lured many overseas browsers into their web by tempting them with life memberships.

Attractive and well laid-out, the club's site informs visitors of the opportunity to become life overseas members for Y95,0000 Japanese yen, or US$750 or stg £500 and asks if they want to talk to someone in Ireland? That someone just happens to be Doug Hennessy, the club's president for this year and also the millennium year.

Hennessy explains the background to Dunfanaghy's move online. "A committee was set up to formulate a number of projects for 2000 and the website was one of them," he says. "We'd a few boys with journalistic backgrounds and that probably helped in the way it was designed and things were worded."

The pages were set up two years ago and Hennessy claims they have received a consistent, strong interest in overseas membership, particularly from Germany, although the site isn't just a marketing tool to that end.

Co Cavan Golf Club's website was - like so many others - set up to provide information on the club. But its success has even surprised secretary Jimmy Sheridan who states that there has been a significant increase in the number of inquiries from societies.

"We only launched our site at the end of February," explains Sheridan, "and, although we've had a little feedback from our members who have used it during the recent bad weather to find out if the course is closed or competitions off etc, the really impressive indication is in the number of society inquiries and the spread of those inquiries. We've also noticed an increase in, say, groups of six or eight coming to play the course and that is something we wouldn't really have had before the site was launched."

So many Irish golf clubs are taking a virtual leap into the millennium - not only to assist members, and promote awareness of the club, but also to boost business. Increasingly, that is the bottom line with many clubs vying for green fees.