Help me design/plan - $100,000 budget

[cdklyz]

Hey All,

Been lurking for a while now reading as much as I could about sims. I've convinced myself I need one of these in my life.

I've got a pretty good space in the room above my garage I think.... 15.5' wide, 21.5' long, 8.25' high. The room is finished right now, but I plan on renovating it completely and taking out the ceiling. There's a slanted ceiling above this room, so I'm hoping by taking away the drywall ceiling and implementing some other ceiling solution, I'll be able to get around 11' of height to play with.

That being said....I want an elite simulator that best fits my needs and wants listed below. So taking all of this in, what would you suggest or could you help steer me in a particular direction? And also, is the difference between a $20k system and a $60k system that noticeable? Would love to hear some opinions of the high end

General Uses:
- US Based - Georgia
- Fun (prob #1 use)
- Practicing
- Online Tournament play
- Indoor only

Features I'm Possibly Interested In:
- Must support local multiplayer
- Ideally multiple tee boxes
- Should support online tournament play
- Movable hitting plate
- Curved screen
- Try to make it as immersive as possible (feel like you're in the course, crisp graphics, big screen)
- Possibly multisport...are the other sports any good on the systems that have them?
- Good putting support
- How does the rough/sand hitting surface feel on Golfzon? Is it worth it?
- How do you all feel about upgradability? I'm a little scared to buy super high end if it's going to be worthless in ~5-8 years...what do you all think?
- Open or closed system in terms of software? If closed, do you ever worry that you'll get bored with a limited set of courses?
- I'd like to have something with fun golf minigames

Thanks for any advice you can give to someone just getting into this! I've got a guy that owns a home theater company company over to look at my space along with a builder. The home theatre company works with HD Golf, but I'm totally open to going in a different direction if there is a better system out there.

[legendsfan]

If you watch the Golf Channel you've seen the AboutGolf Simulators. They are a complete solution system in that you can only get these professionally installed. They have an option for a curved screen which is about as immersive as you can get and can operate as a media hub so you can play movies through it's software. Pretty cool to be able to play movies on a curved screen as it requires special software. It's a camera based system that data wise holds up to a GCQuad and TrackMan. Fully installed you are looking at $60k+. The biggest reason to go with this option is the curved screen and it's an all in one price so you won't spend 100's of hours on this forum looking for advice Otherwise go with a Trackman and buy one or all the simulator software options you have with it.

[aja]

Ok, all you guys with $100,000 systems, chime in... Sheesh!

[HookShank]

For $100k you could build my garage, workshop, entertainment room and simulator. 🙆

[triplebogeysrbetter]

For 100K I would throw in the wife.

[KPaas]

Golfzon is pretty cool. They start 50k+ and are sweet from what I’ve seen

[LEO MODE]

I’ve been eyeing on Golfzon with moving plates and everything but I notiiced that they calculate spin rates and the ball flight result is not accurate. Their spin rate was exactly the same with and without blocking the grooves. It is an arcade game not really for game improvement.

[KPaas]

But I also think a Trackman and fully professional sim room with awesome projector etc would be great.
Or Aboutgolf simulator. 👍🏻👍🏻
Good luck. I’ll just be over here drooling don’t mind me

[mthunt]

I built my sim on an unlimited budget. I talked to the big sim companies and heard the word “custom” a lot. When I built my sim it was either Forsight or one of the Sim companies. The sim companies were good but Foresight was more accurate. I’m overly handy so I decided to go it myself. That was 2014.

Fast forward to 2018. If I were build today I’d honestly go with Trackman 4 and 3rd party software. I like both software options. TGC has so much variety and such good graphics. TGC2019 will be a big improvement. JNPG has great features and a growing course list. There are no bad decisions. I have used both quite a bit along with E6 and FSX.

Here’s my thoughts:

TM4 24k
HQSQ 1k
CCE 1k
Putting Carpet 1k
Projector 1k
Software 1k
Computer 1.5k
bits and pieces 1k

As you can see it would be really hard to spend 100k. Construction and build would eat into that hard but IMO it’s impossible to spend more than 40-50k.

A lot of people go on and on about the features in E6 and FSX. I played at the national level, college golf and was a college golf coach for 15 years. It all sounds like a lot of FUD to me. Both third party options are all you need. Combines Ect. Sales tactics IMO.

[BGCurtis2nd]

I built my wood working shop 24' x 48' with a 6/12 metal roof and 5/12 vaulted ceiling, I took 16' x 20' area out of that and turned that into my sims room, I did all that for about $25,000.00 and yes I did most of the work myself. I never had enough cash to look into the high end systems listed above, but for that kind of cash you should be able to have a putting green, a chipping green, along with the sims area and a bar and still have money left over.

[Dax]

I think once it is out and proved Foresight’s Hawk could be added to consideration here. Personally I would go with the TM4, but know at 21.5 feet that would be the minimum that I would suggest. Gives you 19.5 feet of ball flight 8 feet TM to where you hit and 11 feet of ball flight (TM from wall would take up the other .5).

Please note thay that this does not give you too much room for any guests.

Im thinking of redoing my room and will explore my options over the summer and will stick with my TM3 as it has been very good!

[LEO MODE]

For Trackman with reading all of the spin rates correctly all the time I would say you need at least 24ft long (15ft from ball to screen and 9ft from ball to trackman), 10ft height and 12ft wide. So with a bar and chairs monitors golf clubs and everything, you are looking at like 30ft long, 10ft height and 18ft wide room at least.

[LEO MODE]

If you have enough room distance, Trackman. Not enough distance, Foresight GC2 or GC Quad. If you want arcade style, Golfzon. Trackman & Foresight = realism. Golfzon = a little arcadish.

Trackman simulator is like $50k with a Trackman.
Golfzon full set is about $55k with moving plates and auto tee up. But I recommend waiting for Golfzon’s latest update. The current one in the US is an old version and does not come with Two Vision technology (you can google it).

[Dax]

That is exactly what I’m shooting for Leo. At least 15 feet for the balll and the 9 feet suggested by TM. I will have over 25 feet toplay with I will also vault me ceilings. In total, I will have about 31 feet to play with, but my limiting factor will be 14 feet of width.

[LEO MODE]

Nice! I recently went to a fitting in Club Champion with a Trackman 4, but with an 6 iron they couldn’t measure the damn spin rate. I had to use a metallic sticker and the difference was like 1-3000rpm difference which was a lot. Their distance was like 10ft. My home which is 13ft rarely calculates ball spin on a 6 iron. 15ft at least should be the ideal distance since 13ft can’t read my driver spin rate often.

[cdklyz]

I feel like my room length is too low for a Trackman. In the past week I went and played on a Golfzno Vision simulator near me and was not impress actually. It seemed accurate, but ended up being way too arcadey for me. I'm looking for beautiful looking courses and graphics along with the accuracy. I'm not crazy that the GCQuad only uses FSX....have you all ever used a HD Golf system? I feel like from the videos I've watched, they look beautiful, but I'm not sure where I could try one out before buying?

[LEO MODE]

Sounds fair enough as long as you tried it out. To be honest though, personally I would only trust consistent accuracies on Trackman and GC to some degree (both are sometimes off too). I haven’t tried out HD Golf and other stuff so I can’t say that with confidence.

[Dax]

I think if you went all out on getting spin to read with the HD sim (I believe you need special marked balls), it would be just as good as what the others are putting out. I also think you need to play it as the screen shots are actual, but are also stills and thus for me I prefer something more graphical and where you see trees blowing etc. It’s not a big deal though as I do like what HD looks like. Aboutgolf would be another choice as well, but it has been a while since I played their sim. It was pretty good though and I should note they also need marks balls to read spin. It’s a tough choice indeed. Are you sure you don’t have the room for a TM4? Perhaps you could test one with the dimensions you are looking at. Alternatively, maybe Leo could adjust his set up for your dimensions so you can get a good idea for what you are looking at?

[GungHoGolf]

This HD setup was probably around $60-100K...