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I've gotta give a shout out to this site and the many members that unknowingly helped me as I lurked this site for a couple of months while I was putting this together. My initial plans were building around a Skytrak, but in the end I jumped for a Uneekor QED. That LM is amazing, especially when it comes to putting / short game and for training / game improvement.
The sim is in the back of my side ('boat') garage that is physically attached to the house, but there is no entrance from the house. The garage is about 33' deep and 14' wide with 10' foot ceilings. I was contemplating a radar LM in the beginning, but I have too much stuff in there to eat up 2/3 or more of the space for the sim area. I ended up putting the sim area at the back - it's 12' wide and 14' deep. The screen is about 10" off the wall, so the actual depth is ~13' deep.
As the floor is pretty sloped (about 1" over the 12' width), I had to come up with a way to level the hitting mat. I didn't want anything permanent, so I came up with an idea after beating my head against the wall for about week
. I built a frame from 2x4's that is the same size as the 5'x4' fiberbuilt mat and then lined it with some thick plastic I had laying around. I used about 3 bags of self leveling concrete to fill it along with some rebar (the thin stuff used for block walls). I filled the concrete enough so that I had a bit of concrete all the way up to the front. It really worked out well, and after removing the frame and the plastic, it sits on the floor perfectly level.
As the QED was a last minute change, and the putting / short game is great with it, I needed a way to be able to putt in there. I ended up modifying the stance mat by cutting a 6" strip out and inlaying some wood and some left over putting grass I had laying around from a recent putting green project in the back yard. It really worked out well and putting from there is great. Not as great as the floors many have that are level and have the hitting mats sunk in, ect, but this works for now.
My wife wasn't going to be left out of the build, which was good because the area definitely has a touch to it that I wouldn't have matched as I'm just wanting to hitting balls
. I knew I was looking at 10-12 weeks from the time I ordered the Skytrak and that gave me plenty of time to really do the room right. If I could have ordered one and got it a week later, I would have never put the time, energy and effort into the sim required to get it where it is now. I'm glad it worked out that way, TBH.
The screen is the preferred from Carl's Place and is 10'x10'. I used Uni-strut and tarp clamps to hang it up. The black side and ceiling walls are just 4x8 sheets of sound board from HD painted black. I put that up for looks and screen contrast and it's pretty soft from a golf ball impact perspective. There is a good bit of golf netting used to create some baffles across the top of the screen to catch lob wedges and some side baffles. It was a bit of a pain to cut as I had to singe the cuts with a torch so that the material didn't fall apart, but it worked really well.
The flooring is just the cheap carpet from HD - I think it was about 50 cents a square foot or so. Under that is the interlocking foam/rubber flooring tiles. If you go that route, they're way cheaper at Harbor Freight - I think we paid about $75 for the whole area. The TV on the wall by the screen is a cheap $40 TV my wife found on FB marketplace - I just wanted something there to leave the Ignite software running on for the club and ball data. The TV over the entrance to the room is another $40 tv I got a garage sale a while back that we weren't using. It's connected to an old Roku I had laying around so I can have my NFL games on while I'm playing around
If you don't have or haven't seen the black box with the large buttons on it before on the back side of the hitting mat, it's the best thing since sliced bread for playing TCG 19'. It's basically a nice wood box with large yellow buttons on it that has a small pcb in it that is a keyboard / joystick emulator. You map your keyboard keys to the buttons on there and never have to walk over to the keyboard. I bought it on Ebay when I was searching for QED related 'stuff' there recently. I saw it, and having never played TCG 19' before but seeing video's of people doing it and needing the keyboard fairly handy, I thought...this is a no brainer! I just played my first 18 holes on TGC and I had to find the mouse one time because the drop button didn't work. Didn't figure out why, but I had a few drops after and had no issues.
Thanks for your time! Any questions, comments or ideas for improvement are more than welcome!
The sim is in the back of my side ('boat') garage that is physically attached to the house, but there is no entrance from the house. The garage is about 33' deep and 14' wide with 10' foot ceilings. I was contemplating a radar LM in the beginning, but I have too much stuff in there to eat up 2/3 or more of the space for the sim area. I ended up putting the sim area at the back - it's 12' wide and 14' deep. The screen is about 10" off the wall, so the actual depth is ~13' deep.
As the floor is pretty sloped (about 1" over the 12' width), I had to come up with a way to level the hitting mat. I didn't want anything permanent, so I came up with an idea after beating my head against the wall for about week
. I built a frame from 2x4's that is the same size as the 5'x4' fiberbuilt mat and then lined it with some thick plastic I had laying around. I used about 3 bags of self leveling concrete to fill it along with some rebar (the thin stuff used for block walls). I filled the concrete enough so that I had a bit of concrete all the way up to the front. It really worked out well, and after removing the frame and the plastic, it sits on the floor perfectly level. As the QED was a last minute change, and the putting / short game is great with it, I needed a way to be able to putt in there. I ended up modifying the stance mat by cutting a 6" strip out and inlaying some wood and some left over putting grass I had laying around from a recent putting green project in the back yard. It really worked out well and putting from there is great. Not as great as the floors many have that are level and have the hitting mats sunk in, ect, but this works for now.
My wife wasn't going to be left out of the build, which was good because the area definitely has a touch to it that I wouldn't have matched as I'm just wanting to hitting balls
. I knew I was looking at 10-12 weeks from the time I ordered the Skytrak and that gave me plenty of time to really do the room right. If I could have ordered one and got it a week later, I would have never put the time, energy and effort into the sim required to get it where it is now. I'm glad it worked out that way, TBH.The screen is the preferred from Carl's Place and is 10'x10'. I used Uni-strut and tarp clamps to hang it up. The black side and ceiling walls are just 4x8 sheets of sound board from HD painted black. I put that up for looks and screen contrast and it's pretty soft from a golf ball impact perspective. There is a good bit of golf netting used to create some baffles across the top of the screen to catch lob wedges and some side baffles. It was a bit of a pain to cut as I had to singe the cuts with a torch so that the material didn't fall apart, but it worked really well.
The flooring is just the cheap carpet from HD - I think it was about 50 cents a square foot or so. Under that is the interlocking foam/rubber flooring tiles. If you go that route, they're way cheaper at Harbor Freight - I think we paid about $75 for the whole area. The TV on the wall by the screen is a cheap $40 TV my wife found on FB marketplace - I just wanted something there to leave the Ignite software running on for the club and ball data. The TV over the entrance to the room is another $40 tv I got a garage sale a while back that we weren't using. It's connected to an old Roku I had laying around so I can have my NFL games on while I'm playing around
If you don't have or haven't seen the black box with the large buttons on it before on the back side of the hitting mat, it's the best thing since sliced bread for playing TCG 19'. It's basically a nice wood box with large yellow buttons on it that has a small pcb in it that is a keyboard / joystick emulator. You map your keyboard keys to the buttons on there and never have to walk over to the keyboard. I bought it on Ebay when I was searching for QED related 'stuff' there recently. I saw it, and having never played TCG 19' before but seeing video's of people doing it and needing the keyboard fairly handy, I thought...this is a no brainer! I just played my first 18 holes on TGC and I had to find the mouse one time because the drop button didn't work. Didn't figure out why, but I had a few drops after and had no issues.
Thanks for your time! Any questions, comments or ideas for improvement are more than welcome!
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