'The relaxed atmosphere lowers the threshold for making contacts'

On Thursday, September 6, the moment has arrived again: advanced and novice golfers will compete at Golf Club Zeewolde during the FHI Golf Tournament 2018. The members of the golf committee are looking forward to the thirtieth edition and point out the excellent connections that FHI members can make while hitting a ball.

“Participation in our FHI tournament gives participants a unique opportunity to exchange ideas with like-minded people during and after a sporty round of golf, a walk of about ten kilometers,” says committee member Huub van Oevelen (also director/owner of E -Parts Electro Components BV). The experienced golfer with a handicap of 16.8 continues: “You spend more than four hours playing a round of golf with your flight companions. Even though it is of course customary not to talk when one of your fellow players is busy with his or her stroke, you have ample opportunity to exchange ideas and get to know each other.”

Pim Wieske, Director DIS-Sensors BV and member of the organizing golf committee, is also very pleased with the networking opportunities during the golf tournament: “From personal experience I can say that in addition to a very enjoyable day, it has provided me with an excellent network of fellow entrepreneurs. with which I play a round every month but can also discuss common 'challenges'. Because there is often a more relaxed atmosphere during the game, the threshold for making contacts is lower.”

Gejan Starink, former director at Panasonic Electric Works Sales Western Europe, as a committee member also sees that the interaction between members of the various FHI branches is strengthened during the tournament: “Of course you build up some extra contacts with the players from your flight or with whom you do the clinic together. But the time after playing is usually extremely pleasant and there too you make new contacts or consolidate the contacts from previous years. The important thing about the golf day is that members from all sectors participate. That makes it just fun to create a broader FHI feeling with members from other branches.”

Golfing in Zeewolde

The golf committee has its eye on the golf course in Zeewolde for the thirtieth edition. Zeewolde Golf Club offers on a spacious site of 120 hectares with four nine-hole loops. “We chose a course that is centrally located in the Netherlands and that we have not played before,” Starink explains. “And in recent years the course has really been seen as a 'park course' in the largest deciduous tree forest in the Netherlands, with challenging holes for all levels,” Wieske adds.

Although the course is a paradise for advanced golfers, Van Oevelen emphasizes that novice golfers can also perform excellently during the FHI Golf Tournament: “Of course, the tournament is also open to novice golfers. A beginners clinic is being organized for those interested who have never held a golf club themselves. And there is also a clinic for advanced participants who have already been introduced to the game, but do not yet have a golf proficiency certificate.”

Wieske says that the clinics in previous editions of the golf tournament help to get novice players enthusiastic about the sport of golf: “I know from several colleagues from our own company that they started playing golf for the first time during an FHI golf clinic. They had a great day and have been back every year since.”

Good memories

And now that the tournament will already be celebrating its thirtieth anniversary, the committee members have many good memories of the previous editions. “I have been playing for about ten years now, with a few interruptions, but my fondest look back is on my victory a few years ago,” says Van Oevelen with satisfaction. “Then the FHI tournament was played at GC de Scherpenberg near Apeldoorn.”

Starink especially thinks back to a wet edition of the FHI golf tournament: “My very first participation was at the Nunspeetse, where the course had turned into a mud puddle due to prolonged rain. I slid down a hill there on my back and was more of a 'mud man' after that.”

But for Pim Wieske, networking during the golf tournament ultimately appealed most: “Winning the cup? The good food? The great prizes? No, much more important are all the good friends I have made from it.”