My Simulator Build

[Blaker34]

Hey everyone,


After a lot of research and literally going back and forth on doing this room 6 or 7 times in the past year, we are close to completion. What had held up this project up from taking place initially was the ceiling height. I have 9ft ceilings in my lower level. When you factor in pad, drywall, it drops a couple inches or so. A buddy of mine who is a carpenter and owns a small construction company came up with a creative way to raise the existing 9' ceiling approximately 8". As most of you know, 8" is a very significant amount when you talking about swinging the driver freely. I would have been able to swing the driver without it, but I maybe would have had 2-3" of clearance MAX. The 8" was one of the main deciding factors in me going forward with this room. This ceiling modification also required me to move a good amount of mechanicals, and an engineer signing off since they had to bring in a 6" steel beam and add support beams on each side of the room. We went from 14" floor joists to 6". The only downsize to this besides hitting my pocket book was the room was already 14 feet wide, the covered support posts narrowed the hitting area by 1.5 feet, which all in all wasn't a deal breaker. We are sliding over the hitting area 1.5 or so to accommodate the custom pillars. If I would have considered this before I built the home 2 years ago, I would have gone with 10 foot ceilings and a 16 foot wide room. Maybe our next home

Since the ceiling was modified, it's been a pretty seamless process. I've been dealing with Preston from Par2pro from the beginning. He is at my home now installing the turf, screen, projector etc.

A few details about the room. The 55" flat screen is just for TV/entertainment purposes for when I'm hitting balls or playing, the room is wired up for 5.1. The smaller screen on the side is a Viewsonic 27" touch screen which is where I will be controlling the simulation software. The PC tower and A/V receiver are hidden underneath the cabinetry under the Electrical & AV Panels. The entire floor will be a putting green , there will be a contoured fringe around the perimeter of the room/green. I will have a 6x5' CCE Real Feel mat for the hitting area. After some research into the software/simulation devices, I decided on going with the Flightscope Xi Tour. I was a little hesitant after reading some mixed reviews on Flightscope indoors, however Preston assured me the new Xi Tour with the short indoor mode has been spot on in their testing.

Below are some pictures of the room......

I will add more next week when everything is buttoned up and completed.

[MSUGOGRN]

Thanks! There is 1" foam/rubber underneath all of the turf except the hitting mat, which is a Country Club Elite mat. I didn't do shallow cups. I cored 4 holes in the concrete and installed actual cups to standard depth. The turf is PRO12 from Par2Pro. The reason we did that is to make everything the same height. The CCE mat is 1.75" thick, the putting green is 3/4", and the rubber underlay is 1".

HOWEVER..... My local custom green guy is coming this Thursday to re-do the entire floor. There are 2 things I regret with this floor.

1.) The hitting mat is too wide due to losing putting green surface. The room is only approximately 14 feet wide, add in the white custom posts, there isn't much room to putt between the fringe and the hitting mat.
2.) While the CCE mat definitely gives you proper feedback, within 2 months my left hand/wrist was throbbing on and off and I had a lot of issues. I had read a few issues about that before purchasing, but I thought maybe it was due to people hitting the ball improperly, I'm a + handicap so I figured it wouldn't effect me. However I found out talking to more people, it effects you more when you are striking the ball properly due hitting down and making a divot consistently, which wreaks havoc on your hand and wrist.

In the meantime, for the past month I cut in a 12x24 divot action insert into my CCE mat to relieve some of that. I like the feel of the divot action, but sometimes it gets stuck and pops out of it's opening(installer error, which is me). Since I've been hitting on the divot action, most of the pain has subsided. I'm removing the CCE mat completely. He will be installing a completely new green and I'm just going to have him cut the divot action mat into the green. If I want to add a larger mat down the road, I can. There is nothing wrong with my current green, it rolls nice, looks nice, but I don't want to patch green back in. That is another reason why I regret making the hitting area so large.

When it's done I'll post updated pictures.

This is a great build! It's been a few months since this post. Did your custom green guy come out and redo the putting green with the insert?

[Golfer1204]

What did you get for foam rubber?

[legendsfan]

Why not have the whole room be a putting surface? I put in a thin subfloor (DriCore) and cut a hole in it for the size of a TruStrike Gel pad. Then laid the putting surface over the top. Will cut out putting surface over mat and replace when necessary but this gives it a clean flow and now I can putt in Sim games from my hitting surface.

[gnomike]

What putting turf did you use, and is it rock hard since it's right over the Dricore or is there enough cushion?

[Blaker34]

Why not have the whole room be a putting surface? I put in a thin subfloor (DriCore) and cut a hole in it for the size of a TruStrike Gel pad. Then laid the putting surface over the top. Will cut out putting surface over mat and replace when necessary but this gives it a clean flow and now I can putt in Sim games from my hitting surface.

It actually is now. I ended up re-doing the entire floor and cut out a 24x18 hitting area using a divot action mat. It's worked out pretty good. My initial goal was to do the true strike. However when I called them to talk it over, I left them two messages and no one ever called me back. Do you have pictures of your room???

[Blaker34]

This is a great build! It's been a few months since this post. Did your custom green guy come out and redo the putting green with the insert?

Yup! I will post pictures soon.

[Brettster]

Yes, would love to see the pictures of update, one helluva job... regarding how you raised the ceiling, could you explain that again in 'handyman terms'? It sounded like you cut the floor joists from above to raise the ceiling, is that right? I don't think that can work in my situation, I would need to do it for about 1/4th the floor area of the entire house, in the basement. Wouldn't that destroy the structural integrity of the house?

[Blaker34]

What did you get for foam rubber?

Didn't you get my reply via private message?

[Blaker34]

Yup! I will post pictures soon.

Sorry for limited view, I didn't feel like getting out my nice camera with the wide angle.




Brettster, regarding raising the ceiling. Yes, in most cases it would definitely compromise the structural integrity. I had 14" floor joists, they cut them up to 6", then sandwiched 2x6's to each of them to thicken the floor joists. If you notice the custom white pillars on each side of the room, those actually cover the round support posts that were installed. They installed a 6" steel beam perpendicular to the floor joists, reinforcing the structure. It's actually stronger and more structurally sound than it was before. I had this all signed off by a structural engineer. The worst of it was re-locating all of the mechanicals. However that's what my business does(plumbing, heating, electrical). After it was all said and done, turf to drywall ceiling is about 9.5' to 9.6'. I have a buddy who is 6'6", he has no problem swinging a driver in there. I'm 5'11 and don't sniff the ceiling with my driver.

Hope that helps.

[borntofly1982]

That floor looks amazing. Can you post a link to where you got the greens mat? I understand you cut out the divot action mat section. I'd like to do this. Was it difficult to match up the height?

[Brettster]

Brettster, regarding raising the ceiling. Yes, in most cases it would definitely compromise the structural integrity. I had 14" floor joists, they cut them up to 6", then sandwiched 2x6's to each of them to thicken the floor joists. If you notice the custom white pillars on each side of the room, those actually cover the round support posts that were installed. They installed a 6" steel beam perpendicular to the floor joists, reinforcing the structure. It's actually stronger and more structurally sound than it was before. I had this all signed off by a structural engineer. The worst of it was re-locating all of the mechanicals. However that's what my business does(plumbing, heating, electrical). After it was all said and done, turf to drywall ceiling is about 9.5' to 9.6'. I have a buddy who is 6'6", he has no problem swinging a driver in there. I'm 5'11 and don't sniff the ceiling with my driver.

Hope that helps.

Thanks Blaker - awesome! I just measured, my floorjoists are only 7", I'm going to have to dig. At least I will be able to avoid the posts (and beams), and I'm hoping I can avoid any ledge around the edge of my basement after they dig. How long did your build take, start to finish? I'm hoping to get ready for planning for that step.

Regarding Mechanicals, I need to do that too, but only about 24". I'm hoping I can move the furnace, water softener and gas water heater 24" out of the way, and hopefully have that done for less than $1,000. That's the only way I can clear for 10 1/2' of width. I've been planning this for a long time, and can't wait to have a simulator in place....

Man, awesome job, and look on your sim.