Bounceback on short irons and wedges

[3on3putt]

Been playing on my sim for about a month now. One thing that I haven't fully mastered yet....

I can blast a driver into the screen and the ball just drops straight down. Perfect.

But when I hit a short iron or wedge, the ball hits the upper portion of the screen and flies back over my head a lot of the time. I hung a net above my screen that extends out about 4 feet. Many times the ball spins up and hits the net and drops straight down. But sometimes it comes flying back and soars over my head. I literally catch a lot of the wedge shots that I hit after they bounce back at me. Sometimes the projector gets hit as well.

So basically .... what gives? I know the spin has a lot to do with it as the spin of a wedge can help it ride up the screen and launch it back high. And obviously the wedge is hitting the upper third of the screen while a driver (from 7 feet away) is hitting the bottom half. But is there something about the tension at the top vs. the bottom? My screen is hung with ball bungees at the top and then just one bungee on each side about halfway up the screen. The bottom just hangs loose. How can I get the top half of the screen to behave the same way as the bottom half? It's crazy that a wedge shot can bounce back so much but a driver (that has way more ball speed) just dies on impact.

[Slusheee]

There are a couple of ways to deaden the top of your screen. Option 1: No money involved, Loosen up the top half of your screen. Either relax the frame a bit or the sides where your impact screen is the tightest. Basically where the bottom of your screen is loose, it is able to absorb the impact of the ball better even though the ball is going faster. The top part is too tight and causing a trampoline effect with higher placed shots. You can loosen the top to absorb much more of the impact and still retain a great picture quality. Option 2: A little money involved. Buy a moving blanket from Harbor Freight and hang it directly behind your main hitting area on your shots. The blanket needs to only be hung from the top because you want it to hang loosely on the back of the screen to absorb the impact. Option 3: A little more money and work involved. Hang 12 inch baffles(strips of a durable fabric, I prefer black cordura) from your enclosure ceiling. Hanging a couple of these about 16 inches apart will grab the ball as it bounces off the screen and drop it straight down. There are a bunch more ways to take the bounce out, but, I believe these are the most common. Just remember that the more you loosen the screen, you will need more room behind it to make sure your shots do not hit the wall directly behind. There is always a give and take with finding the right amount of bounce back.

Hope this gives you a couple of ideas.
Slush

[3on3putt]

Thank you for the reply. I think #2 might be the issue. I have some memory foam and blankets hung behind the screen, but the memory foam wasn't big enough to cover the entire screen so I hung it low figuring that's the part of the screen that will be absorbing the higher ball speeds. The upper third or so has no foam, just a blanket. So I'm thinking the top part of the screen may just need more reinforcements behind it like the rest of the screen has.

The screen just hangs from a few ball bungees, so I'm not sure how I could really loosen it anymore. The only tension is caused by gravity and the weight of the screen. I'll try fiddling with the side bungees though. Perhaps those are too tight.

I know there's a correlation between tightness and bounceback. But dang, some of the photos I see on this site of other sims have screens that look perfectly flat with no "waves" whatsoever and claim to have no bounceback. Granted it's not a Carl's or direct from mill screen, so maybe that has something to do with it. In any case, thanks again for taking the time to reply and I will fiddle around with option #2.

[SugerShanks]

Did you get your screen bounce back issue resolved? I'm experiencing similar issues.

[3on3putt]

Did you get your screen bounce back issue resolved? I'm experiencing similar issues.

Yup, it works great now. I hung several sheets and blankets behind the screen and got more memory foam to cover the top half as well. I also swapped out the net I had hanging above the screen for an actual enclosure which helps catch the high wedges better. I also added more bungees across the top. I don't know what sort of effect this had but previously I only had maybe 4 bungees that were doing all the work up top and I now have I think 8. Maybe it sort of distributed the tension more evenly across the screen or something. Basically just a lot of trial and error. But it now works like a charm.