Cosmic Video Amusements, UK distributor and tournament director for the new EA SPORTS™ PGA TOUR® GOLF games from Global VR, have joined with the game's manufacture Maygay to give a major "thumbs-up" to the recent Preview 2003.

Dean Harding, Maygay's sales and marketing director, said of the event. "This was by far the best preview we have attended in the past five years. This work put in by Phil Howard and his team to develop the show, coupled with the hugh improvements in the quality of the Novotel, have returned Preview to its former status as the event that everyone should attend."

Harding's view was endorsed by CVA's managing director John Farrington. "As Dean says' the venue is now first class and the show superbly organised. We had a poll position within the hall, and out team done a fantastic job ensuring that, as people have now come to expect, CVA enjoyed a high profile. More importantly, both Merit Industries and the Global VR/Maygay team provided us with exactly the kind of product that the market is very excited about seeing."

the positive show reaction to EA SPORTS™ PGA TOUR® GOLF did not come as a hugh surprise to those close to the product. The 40 pieces that have been on site test throught CVA for the past six weeks have delivered exceptional performance results. Testing is taking place in both 'new' sites and sites where an alternative video golf games remains part of the product mix. In both cases, says the firm, income levels have genuinely exceeded all expectations.

Although it is difficult to pin point exact reasons for these results, Farrington is happy to speculate. "We reckon that casual players probably outnumber the serious tournament contenders by about 1000,000-to-one, so we have a viable target audience to aim at. Not that we would ever 'knock' any of our rivals, they key thing about EA SPORTS™ PGA TOUR® GOLF is that it provides operator with a real opportunity to introduce new money into video/golf/tournament play in the UK, and that can only be good news for everybody in the business."

Maygay and CVA expect to begin rolling out product between now and the end of the year. This will be followed by a hugh tournament push by CVA within the UK, and a wider European launch form Maygay, both of which are scheduled to take place at ATEI 2003.