Pics of my simulators --- SWM Indoor Golf

[Richard_Askren]

Hey guys,

Some of you know I've been building an indoor golf center in southwest Michigan. I've uploaded an album on imgur showing the process from the start. It's been a hell of a lot of work with a lot of late nights and some 14-17 hour days. But we went from nothing to this point in 2 months! I'm now open and I can't wait for business to really get started. It's been a bit too warm and nice here for me to get much business yet. But I am getting 1-2 bookings a day at least. Anyway, check out the pics at the link below.

The Making of SWM Indoor Golf

EDIT: A few things to explain, the wall OSB is for the carpeted sections. The carpeting is mainly to protect the walls and to absorb some of the bounce off the walls. OSB is cheaper than drywall and tougher so it's perfect for being in the potential impact zone. Drywall was used for the rest of the walls mainly for looks. Once we add the trim on it will all look much cleaner and nicer.

[SFR]

Great looking project.

[Maverick]

Looks great Richard!

[Craig118]

Looks first class all the way. I am thinking, with TGC sim coming and its awe factor, its a good time to get into this. Also TGC adds another aspect to the sim business. Maybe promote along the lines of "design and play your own course". All customers need to do is bring you a course file or email it.....publish it and swing away. Awesome.

[Bubba22]

Good points Craig. Yes TGC will allow customers to design their hom cours for winter play. Very, very cool.

[HWoods]

I'm both jealous and impressed. I'd do this in a second if my town had the market. Very well done, congrats!

[Maverick]

Looks first class all the way. I am thinking, with TGC sim coming and its awe factor, its a good time to get into this. Also TGC adds another aspect to the sim business. Maybe promote along the lines of "design and play your own course". All customers need to do is bring you a course file or email it.....publish it and swing away. Awesome.

Great idea indeed. Steam players can just bring their course file once and can play it any time.

Richard should also market online play to his customers. He can sign them up for our league. Using TGC, they can play whenever they want but must enter the scores in the online site. Their ghost round will be stored on the server for anybody to see. They can of course play online in realtime with a live person if they choose.

[Richard_Askren]

Yup, I've been telling my customers about TGC. One of the most common questions I get is, "Do you have Harbor Shores?" Hehe, it's only a couple miles from here. I still need to play that course myself. I walked it when the Senior PGA Championship was here this year. Very beautiful. Hopefully somebody makes a good version of it. I've let them know, too, they could play their own courses if they purchase the game and design some. I look forward to adding it to my sims. I do hope they add a lot more tree and foliage sets to TGC before the sim release. The courses tend to blur together. One thing I like about Protee Play is that the courses are definitely very distinct from each other. You can tell just looking at it what course you're on.

I think I'll only encourage online play after simTGC is released and only if the customer has heard of and owns TGC. ProTee online play is a bit too awkward to coordinate and set up.

Thanks for the kind words, guys! I appreciate it. Hopefully business picks up very quickly for me. That first bay with my clubs in it is where I've played my rounds for this week's tournament.

[Richard_Askren]

Got a new pic of my place. Finally put up the trim and added some more nice touches. Just have to finish the computer cabinets, still.

[zip]

Looks beautiful. I'm in Lansing, I'll have to come down and check it out when you're open.

[Richard_Askren]

I'm open now, actually. I've been open since October 18th.

[zip]

Cool! Do you have a website? How's business been?

[Richard_Askren]

Business is going well and getting better still. My site is http://www.swmindoorgolf.com/

[DougieMn]

Very impressive facility!!!! Locals are lucky to have such a place to play. How did you mount your impact screens? I finished framing walls and started wiring my little project and am looking ahead of how to mount the screen and if I need to do anything special before the drywallers show up.

[cvclub]

Very cool project, where exactly is your place? I live in Traverse City and would enjoy coming down!