Eagle and Planette join forces

The two leading names in course guides, Eagle and Planette, have joined forces to become the largest supplier of guides to golf clubs throughout the UK and Europe.

The driving force at Eagle and Planette, Phil McInley and Brian Winteridge, are determined to reinforce their already strong market position by delivering even better value, and offering a wider range of marketing tools and income generating opportunities for golf clubs.

Phil McInley, MD of Eagle, explains their thinking: "Planette is a strong brand name in this sector. Eagle deals largely with clubs and club secretaries, so combining with Brian and his company creates new opportunities for us in the club professional sector where Planette is widely respected for its course guides. Similarly, Planette's customers will now have greater access to Eagle's market-leading range of club and course signage, scorecards, green fee tickets, bag tags and other marketing and course accessories.

This synergy will be an ideal platform on which to expand the Eagle brand throughout 2007."

Making it happen

Planette's operational and administrative functions have already been placed in the hands of the 18-strong team of project managers, designers and admin staff based at Eagle's offices in Caterham, Surrey. In addition, Planette's sales capabilities of will be significantly extended by Eagle's sales force which covers the whole of the UK, namely John Stuart for Scotland, Dean Poynter for the North of England and the Midlands, and Tim Read for the South of England.

Customer benefits

By combining their resources, the company is in a much stronger position to:
- provide better value for existing and new customers, both clubs and club professionals
- deliver a greater range of income generating opportunities
- provide an even more reliable and stable service in a market that is seeing the effects of competition impact on smaller companies with weaker financial resources, forcing some into administration and change of ownership
- offer club professional customers access to Eagle's market-leading range of club and course signage, scorecards and numerous other income-generating accessories

New products, same prices

Planette has been developing a new graphics suite which was launched at the recent Golf show at Telford. Eagle's comprehensive range of course guides includes the new 'Aerial' style of course guides, with the first of these being completed for Trevose GC. The Eagle Aerial guides have been receiving widespread acclaim for their overhead/oblique photographic views of holes.