Please help me feel good about my decision

[jeeve5]

9x12 screen, with a 10' ceiling height. Tee at 10' from screen and Uneekor QED mounted at 13.5' from screen. So best I can come up with is a projector mounted 14' from the screen, while being cognizant of the vertical throw. Only option I can come up with/find is the discontinued Sony VPL-FHZ55B with VPLL-Z3009 zoom lens.

Problem is this is way more money than I was expecting. The projector is like $4k and the lens $2k. I can find some used ones on eBay to save maybe like $2k total. But still having a hard time pulling the trigger.

Anyone want to suggest another option because i have spent hours and hours on projector central and I am pulling my hair out. Or make me feel good about moving ahead at that price... please! Thanks in advance.

[3on3putt]

Great stuff. Really appreciate it. So I guess I was thinking about it all wrong! I had seen a bunch of QED setups
with projectors directly behind.

Given that your projector is only one foot in front of your tee, and you couldn’t hit it if you tried, how tall is your ceiling? Sounds like maybe 9?

My ceiling is 12 feet (garage), but my projector hangs at about 9.5 feet. But you have to think about the path that the club takes during the swing. If the projector is centered to the screen and more or less above the ball, you are swinging around it. In other words, my follow through is way left of the projector. I would have to do some serious Arnold Palmer-like follow through to even come remotely close to hitting it. And even then it's still a good 9-10 feet off the ground.

The bottom line is that casting an image that's 9 feet tall with only 10-foot ceilings is tough (as you have found). Your best bet is to cast an image that's like 8 feet tall (and 10.6 feet wide, keeping that 4:3 ratio). If you're worried about an 8 foot tall image not being tall enough, picture yourself standing 10 feet away from a guy who is a full foot taller than Shaq. In other words, it's plenty big. And that will open you up to a wide selection of projectors that can be had for under 1k.

[airbaker]

3on3 is spot on. I just finished my install with a GT1080HDR and it's mounted almost exactly above the hitting area of my QED (I think 95" from the screen to be exact). Room is 15.5 x 15.5 with 10' ceilings. The vertical offset is a little bit of a bummer, but like was mentioned in previous replies, an 8' + tall image is more than enough at only 9-10 feet from the screen. Other than that,If I could go back in time, I might want to go with the BenQ, because a zoom feature would be nice.

Addressing the concern about hitting the projector: I'm a fairly decent "real golfer" (3 index), so I don't have a lot of mishits - but I'd have to do something awfully crazy to get anywhere close to the projector. I tried a 60 degree flop shot ala Michaelson-style, and hit the ceiling, but still missed the projector by 2 feet.

[jeeve5]

Thanks everyone for all the great input. I guess part of my thought process was the room
extends back another 17’ - and we also want to be able to set up seating and watch movies.

[3on3putt]

Thanks everyone for all the great input. I guess part of my thought process was the room
extends back another 17’ - and we also want to be able to set up seating and watch movies.

Can still have seating and movie watching from back there. Get a projector with a decent amount of lumens and kill the lights for movies.