They say that golf offers the perfect opportunity for doing business, but Link Microtek took the concept a stage further by creating a six-hole, eighteen par golf course on its stand for its Golf Challenge at the European Microwave Exhibition. Each day of the three-day exhibition the lowest score won a bottle of champagne with the overall winner receiving a Sony PSP. This went to Mathew O'Keefe from Filtronic Compound Semiconductors, Newton Aycliffe, UK, who was the winner on the first day with a terrific five under par score of 13. He claimed that he had never played before despite getting two holes-in-one on the first two holes!
The other two winners were Chris Lucas of Thales, Leicester, UK, with a score of 14, and Julio Lonac of the University of Ferrara, Bologna, Italy, who scored 15, which were very impressive when most scores were in the 22-25 range. Link Microtek made a concerted effort to make its stand different and were rewarded with great interest.
The holes were fantastically designed and it was guaranteed that all was above board as all entrants scores were marked and signed off by a stand person. Some holes were particularly difficult, with Hole 3 being impossible to get a hole-in-one at due to its 90° dog leg, while Hole 5's most obvious route through the middle pipe had a catch in that the ball was returned to the players feet via the adjacent pipe!! Matthew O'Keefe fell for this trap but still managed to card a four on this hole! Congratulations to him and to Link Microtek for their efforts.