Hitting area dimensions and height

[LeeRob23]

Hi,

I have now moved into my new home and will be starting my new build soon but come across a bit of a problem with the roof truss height. They are currently 7.1ft so i need to get them raised up.

Will raising them to 9ft be high enough and if i can get away with only raising part of the roof (maybe 3 bottom trusses) what sort of raised area do i need, all of the area above the hitting area and what would that need to be?

I have all of the dimensions if it helps. I have a structural engineer coming over at the weekend to have a look at the job but need some idea of what i need to do before he comes so any help would be appreciated.

The garage is 16ft square, 7.1ft to the bottom of the truss at the roof pitches up to 12ft in the middle.

Thanks,
Lee

[mthunt]

You need room to swing. That's it. Maybe you're 7'2", maybe you're 5'2". You can see how it differs. I'm 6'1" and my ceiling is 10'. It is way more than enough for me.

[LeeRob23]

Hi mthunt, thanks for the response.

I am 5'10 so i am hoping 9ft will be enough?

Also how much room will i need around me, if i am only raising the roof in one part what sort of dimensions do you think. The roof trusses are 2ft apart so if i get two of them raised it will give me an area of about 6ft in width above me that would be raised?

Thanks,
Lee

[LeeRob23]

[LeeRob23]

[aja]

You need more than just a small area/niche to be able to use your garage for a golf sim. Probably before your time but Get Smart's 'cone of silence' somehow comes to mind.

It's tough enough to be hitting indoors and it's going to be even tougher psychologically if the rest of the hitting space is closing in on you. You should consider raising the roof so that you have a minimum clear height of 9 feet over your entire hitting area. With a 7 foot ceiling limiting your impact screen height, anything over a 7 iron will probably be hitting the ceiling before the screen.

With a 16 foot square garage you basically should plan on using the whole floor plan for your sim. That's a pretty small garage.

[LeeRob23]

Hey Aja,

Thanks for the input. I'm hoping that when he comes to take a look at it he will give the ok to replace the roof trusses with rafters then the whole of the inside will be pitched giving me 12ft in the middle and reduces as it goes out then I can centre the hitting mat and screen there. What does the distance between screen and mat need to be?

[aja]

You'll get lot's of good advice on this forum for sure but it will depend on your situation as to what fits and what doesn't.

Some guys have gone so far as excavating and making their space deeper, not higher.

As far as hitting distance goes, I hit from about 10 feet from the impact screen.

A kind of general reference for the size of the hitting area is given by Protee for their set-ups:

http://csc.protee-united.com/hc/en-us/articles/216279098-ProTee-Golf-2-0-Simulator-dimensions

[wbond]

My garage was built in 1949(or somewhere around there) and they do not have the bottom joist that's on a standard truss nowadays. It only had the two rafters going up to a ridge board with collar ties on every other rafter. Obviously new designs are better than the old, but If you are able to get to that, it would be better to open it up as much as possible. Do you need both righty and lefty? If not, i suggest moving slightly to the outside so you have the most height you can get in your backswing. I think my center is about 15' or so and with the pitch, it does drop down fairly quickly and i have about 4 more feet than you do.
Here you can see the collar ties, rafters and ridge board and then the openness of the garage.

[mthunt]

Whatever you feel comfortable swinging in is what's right for you. You can try swinging in a bedroom or some kind of make shift set up with cardboard. It's your room. Trial and error is best. I find I need 7' of clearance in the back swing, 8 ball flight, 7 feet from the ball to the wall behind me. That is bare bare minimum for me. There's also a huge difference between swinging a driver and a 7 iron.

[LeeRob23]

Hi mthunt,

Thanks that a big help. Ive got a small spare room that i'm going to have a few swings in. Its all going to depend on what the engineer says so fingers crossed. I jumped the gun a bit as I already have Skytrak and a hitting strip