Is Golf A "Small Part" Of The Donald Trump Empire?

John Barton's November 2014 Golf Digest interview with Donald Trump is worth another look now that the mogul is leading Republican polls in the bid for the presidential nomination.

In it, Trump says golf is a small part of his net worth.

Well, it's an interesting question. It's a relatively small part of it. You know, I own buildings. I'm a builder; I know how to build. Nobody can build like I can build. Nobody. And the builders in New York will tell you that. I build the best product. And my name helps a lot.

Yet CNBC's Tim Mullaney breaks down Trump's financial disclosure forms and feels that golf was declared as an unduly large portion of the candidate's net worth.

The Donald's financial-disclosure paperwork, released Wednesday by federal election officials, claim that Trump's 16 golf-related businesses are worth $550 million to more than $675 million. That's a big chunk of his net worth, which the filing said was at least $1.15 billion and which Trump himself says is about $10 billion.

Experts say there could be good reason to disqualify the Republican presidential hopeful's scorecard math when it comes to the way he values his golf courses, based on standard valuation measures in the golf sector.

The financial disclosure form values many of Trump's courses at two to four times the multiples of annual revenue other courses command, in an industry where most operators struggle to make profits, according to golf course appraisers. An industry rule of thumb is that courses are worth 1 to 1.5 times their annual revenue.

Trump reported combined revenue of less than $160 million, excluding the Miami resort, which doesn't break out golf-related revenue, and land sales at the Los Angeles property. Based on the industry standard valuation metric, that would put the value of Trump's golf empire closer to $160 million to $250 million.