Playing With Friends

[msg]

To those who already have their golf simulators up and running, when your friends come over and play, do they pay any amount for the use of your simulator?

I am planning in building one in our basement and I have a rather large group of golfer friends that I stay close with. I am the only one who has a basement that can accommodate the idea of building a golf simulator. Almost all of them when they heard I am getting a high ceiling basement, told me that they are willing to invest or pay for golf games every winter. Instead of paying the local golf shop that has a simulator, they said they can just pay me instead.

While that is a good idea, to recoup the investment, I am just worried that my weekends would become busy if they all come over. I can always say no but if they have an investment in the unit then that would be an issue. One friend even said he can try to invite some other golfers and they can pay for more revenue. While it sounds great, I don't think I want other people that are not within my circle of friends playing down our basement.

I was initially worried with the unit getting hit if I get a Sky Trak but there are options for that, like the FMJ and the Armour. Now my worry is managing my weekends when they plan on coming over if ever.

Any thoughts? Comments? Suggestions?

[Boerdoc]

For close friends, have them come over and help with the build out. They can invest their time which is more important than money. For friends of friends I would not have them over unsupervised. I just do not trust strangers to take the same care as I do with my stuff.

For payments, I would not do it for the equipment. You want full ownership of everything. Whenever they come over, they should be bringing the food and beverages, ALL the time. If you want pizza, tell them exactly the toppings you want. That is the cost of playing. If they want to pay you something, ok. But I would not charge a set fee.

After a year passes and they are using it frequently you can bring up the cost of renewal fees. They would be happy to chip in for that.

Just my 2 cents.

[goatbarn]

Yikes I'd never charge my friends to play. They should bring beers/etc...but I'd never expect anything. They're friends of course...

Now if you run a league, maybe a portion of the league to go to "maintenance costs" of keeping the sim up to date, wires, cables, adapters...etc. But I wouldn't do that either, but that's just me.

If you had a separate door to your basement and they could come in during certain times/scheduled times on their own, that'd be different.

[wbond]

I wouldn't even head down that road. Money does crazy things to people, even friends. Build/spend what you want and invite them over when YOU want. Usually good friends will offer to bring food and drinks anyway. I wouldn't even consider having friends of friends, unless you know them personally.

[andygg1986]

I agree with the above comments. I wouldn't want them paying for the upfront costs of the simulator because I would feel obligated to let them come over whenever they want. I think the inconvenience factor there would be difficult to put a price on, especially if you have lots of other stuff going on in your life. And if you decided to move or something, it could get awkward when you take the hardware.

Personally, I would feel bad making them pay me money to use it, but I would have no problem telling them to bring drinks and food. I would also consider setting up a league where you play at a set time every week to make scheduling things easier for everyone. Not necessarily everyone at once, but maybe a couple of people come over Tuesdays, a couple others on Thursdays, etc. If you have eight or ten people each calling you separately to come over, you will be busy all of the time! I guess a separate basement entrance could help with that, but I wouldn't want to give out a bunch of keys either. And I would definitely invest in one of the new metal cases for peace of mind. I have the GC2 metal case that golf stores use and still get nervous when other people play.

[DirtyGarry24]

Definitely NO on getting them to invest in the sim. It's your simulator, you're going to be the best golfer. You gamble with them. Take their money slowly and painfully. Make fun of them to everyone that you know about how much money that you won from them. After all, what are friends for? Then, when they don't want to gamble anymore, you find some new suckers, I mean friends.

Seriously, don't get involved with dual ownership. Own it and decide who you let use. Buddy of mine has a tip jar set up in his dart room. You miss the board, you put a $1 in the tip jar. Gets a bit hairy in the wee hours of the morning and you've already had too much aiming fluid.

[msg]

Thanks guys for the replies. I read all your replies one by one. I thank you for the time and effort in replying to my inquiry.

While on paper it's nice to get help in this project as it is not cheap but I am the type of person who plays out all the scenarios in the future before getting myself into something. And all I can see was complications with "investment" part. I would have a hard time saying no to my friends when I don't feel like playing since they have a stake at the unit. And also the point when there is money involved, it just brings issues and complications with friendship.

And since I do not know anyone who has a sim in our area, this forum is the perfect place to ask inputs and I am glad I did. The part where my friend would invite others outside our
circle can easily been fixed by him keeping quiet. That's easy enough to resolve.

As for the pay per play, we can just agree to do it differently, just like what some suggested, just bring food, beer, pizza or what not. At least there is no obligation there. I guess we just got used to paying one another like when we carpool for our golf trips outside the city and what not, that is why they brought this up with the golf simulator.

I have not said anything to my friends nor agreed to anything so I should still be good.

Thanks a lot guys, you have done a great job removing doubts in my mind on how should I do this. Now time to focus on the other parts of this project, like the screen, hitting mat, nets etc.

[CBearsSB]

I assume before posting you got your wife's approval. 😎

[msg]

I assume before posting you got your wife's approval. 😎

Yes. She said yes to the raised basement. She said yes to the golf sim. She's a keeper.

I guess the reverse psychology I did on her worked? lol

[goatbarn]

That or the physical abuse...right guys?

[Yahtzee]

I had neighbors who wanted to chip in on the unit and I said no to them based on all the comments above. However I do plan on asking them to help out with the renewal fee for GIP if they are regular users.

[msg]

I had neighbors who wanted to chip in on the unit and I said no to them based on all the comments above. However I do plan on asking them to help out with the renewal fee for GIP if they are regular users.

I think chipping in the GIP package is a fair deal specially if they will be playing a lot.

[wbond]

Just put a tip jar out. Seems everyone else in this world has one these days!!