Enclosure Necessary?

[whitetiger]

I have been wondering if there are any cons to not building an enclosure for my simulator. For reference, I have an entire garage that is 28’ long with 14’ ceilings to use for the build.

[wildcatfan9698]

May depend on how wide your screen will be and the skill set of the players who will use it. I only have a retractable screen (10 ft wide) but it's plenty for the guys who uses it, all low handicap players. Will want wider and maybe some side protection if you have beginners, etc.

[Ronsc1985]

I have been wondering if there are any cons to not building an enclosure for my simulator. For reference, I have an entire garage that is 28’ long with 14’ ceilings to use for the build.

Depends on how much repair work you want to do. I don't care who plays there, hacker or scratch golfer, sooner or later they will hit the ceiling ,walls, etc. The nature of all golfers is to chase the long ball. Having a simulator which spits out distance and ball speed numbers just encourages those playing to try and go faster which in turn guarantees that sooner or later they will hit a shank, sky ball etc and clang into your ceilings and walls.

Stand on the first tee at any golf course and watch the shots. Both hackers and scratch golfers hit really awful shot. The only difference is the scratch golfers do it a lot less often. Indoors they may be worse simply because they tend to have greater ball speed which just makes larger dents in the sheet rock, wood etc.and greater velocity rebounds off any hard object.

[slikk66]

I dont have an enclosure, I have a 12' wide screen and a cheapy net hung flat across the ceiling for skyballs. The biggest issue is balls bouncing off the screen and to the sides and having to go and chase them, but not really a big deal.

[kperry]

My screen is 12' wide and I hit from about 11 feet away and if I hit an occasional shank, it will still be 1-2 feet inside the edge of the screen. Now, I once saw my brother hit a ball between his own legs and hit a playing partner on a real course and needless to say I have never invited him over to the sim.

[mthunt]

They always used to say to build your sim for the worst case scenario. A bad shot can do a lot of damage.