Feedback on Potential Garage Location

[leftyboy]

As a brand new member I first want to thank everyone for the creation and maintenance of this awesome community.

I am just beginning my journey of exploring and researching golf simulators and may very well begin setting up my first build soon.


Location

2-Car Garage
I really only have one location that meets my height requirements and that is a 2 car garage with 11 foot ceilings. Please see the diagrams (forgive my amateur sketches) below. Unfortunately, there are some potential concerns with that setup and I would love to avoid some future pitfalls by leveraging the knowledge of the vast amount of experience on this forum to answer some questions or even offer suggestions that would be most appreciated.




Concerns/Questions
Height of the potential hitting area is 11 feet, which is great. However there is only about 11 feet of depth in this area from the garage door to an overhead shelf that is just slightly over 7 feet high. I can't test swing at the moment because of the mess in the garage but I hope to have that resolved soon (says every husband that ever lived). Without fulling swinging this feels like it is going to be a bit tight. I'm 6'4" for reference.

My other concern is that I will likely have to place the impact screen under the overhead shelf. At just over 7 feet tall, do you see any concerns with this. My practice net is really only 6 feet high in the middle but I do have to be close to hit wedge shots. Again, at some point I hope to move the net into the garage and take some test swings.

My garage door opener has a typical bar/chain in the middle of the room about 8 feet high. If I ignore accommodating both handed hitters should I be able to make this work by having the bar overhead of the ball or just to the side of the ball. Again, I will be test hitting in the garage ASAP.


Gear

Golf Mat
I currently have DURA-PRO Perfect Reaction 5x5 Golf Mat which feels amazing and seems like it should hold up well. I may have gone a different route had I known about this forum before now. Any thoughts or concerns on this mat?

Impact Screen
I'm thinking a 16:9 screen around 7 feet high would be nice. The SIG Premium appears to be just over $800. A bit much in my opinion and I'm hoping other have better suggestions while still getting something high quality and versatile if my setup changes. I like the idea of being able to roll it up or disassemble things (even if it take 15 minutes or so) to have use of the garage space. However I'm also keen on leaving it up when I'm regularly using it/not playing as much on the course.

Golf Monitor
I pulled the trigger on a Garmin R10 a few weeks back but decided to cancel that after research the Foresight GC3 coming out. It seems like the Garmin would be perfect for my wife (just starting playing more regularly this year) to practice but wouldn't have the accuracy I would want to hone things in for me (just shot my first game in the 70s this year... clearly caught the bug now and will likely get my first set of fitted irons soon). I'll probably hold off a bit until I see some end user feedback on the GC3 in about a month. That seems to be what I'm leaning towards. I really hope it works with TGC software but I'm not holding my breathe based on what I've heard.

Projector
No clue on this yet. Ideally as cheap as possible while balanced with some quality. Yes, I know I can have both but I do have to reign myself in at some point.

Computer
Dell Laptop with i7 processor and decent graphics card (for a laptop that is). I'm content with this setup for now if it works. I would be surprised if it didn't.

Flooring
I suppose I'll need an additional mat in between my hitting mat and the screen. I like the idea of that area also serving as a putting surface as well. I suspect the actual hitting mat would be used for simulated putting since the monitor is already at that spot. Not sure on this though.


Any other recommendations on my setup ideas?


Thanks again for allowing me to join this community and anyone ahead of time for their feedback!

[GullLakeMi]

I recommend replacing garage door opener with a wall mount. Installation is very easy DIY project. Took me about an hour start to finish including removing the old one. No special tools required. The wall mount openers are very quiet as well.

Seems like the shelf will be in the way. Best way to check is to clear the floor and swing a club. I marked the floor with tape to reference hitting mat and ball placement. Then swung longest club slowly from both sides to simulate and try to identify tolerances. It's great you have 11' height.

[golfsimulatorsite]

can you post some pics of the area you want the simulator. That way I can give you some options and suggestions

at only 9 ft wide, you are going to be swinging about 1-2 ft from right side of screen . If you could flip it to other side that would help center your swing more

7 ft high screen is real small. you want the largest screen you can fit for maximium hitting area.

unfortunately, garage door openers always seem to get in the way. wall mounted is a great suggestion

thx

Chip

[leftyboy]

Agreed. I have to get things cleaned up/sold so that I can do some practice swings. I'm thinking moving the shelf back 2 to 4 feet or more is going to be required. Being able to place the screen in front of the shelf will allow me to utilize the entire height of the room and use a much bigger/taller screen.


I figured the garage door motor may have to be swapped to a wall mount. It's going to be a very tight fit against the side wall but I'll look into that.

[golfsimulatorsite]

post pics when you get it cleaned up. Since your name is leftyboy, I assume your left handed?

[leftyboy]

I was wondering if I'd get that question. Oddly enough I used to pitch/shoot left handed and batted right. So I swing a golf club right handed as well.

[golfsimulatorsite]

Im the exact same way. Im left handed but play right handed

[aussiebenny]

My double garage is pretty much identical to yours with garage door bar/chain being 8 feet high right in the middle just like yours and have a ceiling height of 11.5 feet. But my double garage is a super tight 18 feet x 18feet in size. I wish my garage was 20 feet. Would have been so much better. haha. However, I do not have that overhanging storage. So I have plenty of room in that sense I guess. See this video I uploaded of my config: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vDywgtmV76w

You can see that I had to place my mat towards the center as to not hit the garage door bar/chain on my back swing or follow through. Also, with this layout, I can still park a car in-between my 10 feet wide net cage when I need to.

But yeah, since you have that overhead storage, seems it's not possible to set it up like me. So I can only see you going side ways (hitting from the right side wall to the left wall would be best) while changing out the garage door opener to a side mounted one. (which I might also do later, but not urgent atm) e.g. see my mockup below. (ratio is not accurate) Small red box is Mevo+ and small blue box would be GC3 haha. So maybe you could do something like that if you remove the garage door opener... (but yeah, won't be as good for a left hand player still due to the overhead storage maybe)

[leftyboy]

Wow, very useful feedback. Thanks for taking the time to visualize your thoughts using the image and sending the video example. I'm definitely considering the side to side option since that may allow me to avoid cutting back my overhead shelf.

[aussiebenny]

leftyboy Glad to help. Yeah, side to side may be best, and would still allow you to park at least 1 car easily. Btw, for reference, my net cage is 10' high x 10' wide x 3' deep. My mat is 5' x 5'.

[leftyboy]

That's good to know too. My net (no projector screen at this point) sags down to 7 foot in the middle so I'm sure I would have to do something different for a radar unit to get the distance it needs. Thanks.