Just how much bigger can golf on the internet get? Mark Lichtenhein, the managing director of GolfWeb Europe, has a theory that goes something along the lines of "you ain't seen nothing yet." More than any other sport, golf has embraced modern technology and spawned a family of sites on the web.

With the click of a mouse, users can browse through well-researched sites that enable them to purchase merchandise, obtain up-to-date information on tournaments around the world, seek facts and figures about any course of note anywhere and read endless player biographies. Quite literally, if you put the search mode on "golf," an endless choice awaits.

The leader of the pack is, undoubtedly, GolfWeb. The company started its operations in the United States in January 1995, the brainchild of Ed Pattermann who worked with Sun Microsystems, and GolfWeb Europe - as part of GolfWeb'sglobal expansion which also saw units established in Japan and Australia - was launched at the Scottish Open in July of that year. Its European arm provides features, reports on tournaments (men's, women's, the challenge tour, seniors and top amateur events) as well as a database of some 3,500 courses in Europe with travel tips and green fees.

When the British Open was staged at Royal Troon in July, GolfWeb Europe had a staggering 20 million hits alone for that week and there were a similar number during the Ryder Cup at Valderrama. Indeed, Lichtenhein estimates the current growth is running at approximately 10 per cent with no end in sight. "There are 60 or 70 million golfers in the world," he says, obviously thinking of still more customers for his service.

So, why golf? "Well, the demographic fit is good. Generally, people who play golf have access to computers, certainly more than those involved in any other sport," explains Lichtenhein.

The PGA European Tour - well aware of the benefits of an internet site - actually teamed-up with GolfWeb Europe earlier this year for it to become its official internet partner, enabling it to avail of the company's high-speed network in the United States.

It may seem strange that some 50 per cent of readers inquiring about the European Tour's tournaments actually come from other parts of the globe, Australia and America mainly. However, this is explained by the relatively poor coverage which European events, apart from the British Open and the Ryder Cup, receive in their national newspapers.

Indeed, there is also a trend for some tournaments to develop their own dedicated sites. For instance, when the Smurfit European Open was held at The K Club in August, EDS provided a dedicated site that included leader board, player biographies and three-dimensional images of the holes on the course. And, for the Ryder Cup, IBM - who provided a similar service at the US Masters - provided a live service with text commentary as the matches progressed.

GolfWeb even went a stage further at Valderrama, picking up BBC Radio Five's live commentary on the matches to provide a "real audio" service for those who had access to computers with speakers.

Apart from giving out such live information, the web sites have grown into a huge market place. One of the features of GolfWeb's US pages is a "Pro Shop" sector where virtually everything associated with golf is on offer.

GolfWeb Europe don't replicate their American sidekicks, simply because no distributor in Europe can hope to beat American prices. A simple, but important statistic, is that between 40 and 50 per cent of all the sales generated on the US site are actually from outside America, with some 80 per cent of them in Europe, particularly continental Europe where it is still cheaper to buy the goods via the internet and pay whatever duty and VAT is demanded than go to the local highstreet store.

The web doesn't purport to be the font of all knowledge, but it covers a myriad of golfing matters. To more and more golfing people, it is becoming a necessary appendage.

As far as tournament reports go, the busiest time - i.e. the greatest number of hits - comes on a Friday afternoon, when people are preparing to leave the office, and on a Monday morning when, the marketing people think, they don't fancy getting straight into their workload and, instead, browse the net to find out what happened in golf over the weekend.

At the moment in Britain, British Telecom have a commercial running which claims "geography is history." Lichtenhein is inclined to bring a similar analysis to how golf sites operate. "Geography is irrelevant," he says.

Such a statement is actually borne out by the mechanics of GolfWeb's preparations. With the US having a decided advantage in terms of time zone, GolfWeb Europe's tournament results and reports pages are actually made up using the company's resources in California. It is a very sensible solution, as the American workers are only arriving into the office at a time when their European colleagues are finishing their reports from tournaments.

So, how much better can golf on the web - which has reached a very high standard already - get? "I believe we are still in the very early stages of internet development . . . the future holds enormous potential," says Lichtenhein.