Narrow Room Question

[ILgolfer]

Alright so I’ve read a ton on this forum about this exact issue but I want to lay out my specific situation and see what considerations I need to make. Here are my dimensions for a potential 3rd stall garage build.

11 feet from the side wall to garage door rails so this is my width as I would be hitting towards the side wall of my garage. Depth is no problem as I basically have the entirety of a 3 stall garage. Height is a little over 9 feet. I can swing a driver no issue on height. However the width is a major problem. If I have a 10 ft wide x 7.7 ft tall screen (4:3 ratio) and I push the screen as far right as possible the middle of the screen will be 6 ft from the side wall and 5 ft from the garage track rails. I can’t swing any clubs as a righty without hitting the wall behind me at 6 ft. However if I put the ball at 8ft from the side wall and 3 ft from the rails I can swing freely. Is this ok? What am I missing? That leaves only 3 ft of screen to the right of where I am hitting. Is that bad for the screen or cause any more bounce back if I’m not hitting towards the direct middle? I don’t want to pull the trigger and buy thousands of dollars of stuff only for me to miss something and have this be a disaster. Any guidance or help would be fantastic.

[COgolfengineer]

My space is only 10.5ft wide so a narrow room is doable. Hard to picture all the dimensions you mentioned. It would be very helpful if you could do a rough sketch with dimensions labeled.

[ILgolfer]

I can mock something up and post it here. Basically the issue is my width which is 11 ft. As a righty at my back is a wall and in front of me is a support pole and garage tracks mounted to the ceiling. So on a 10 ft wide screen in order to be able to swing I need to have the ball 8 ft from the wall at my back which means it won’t be directly in the center of the screen. Does that make more sense? Im not great at these descriptions haha. Im an accountant by trade.

[COgolfengineer]

ILgolfer Oh my dad's an accountant!

I have the tee 7.5ft from the wall towards my back, no issues. Hitting off-center is no big deal as all the game software has an option to shift the ball on the screen, but that has no bearing on the launch monitor measuring the ball. Which launch monitor do you have or are looking at?

[ILgolfer]

That’s good to know. I’m potentially looking at the Uneekor QED. I’d love to get more details on the Eye Mini floor unit. I saw that they are releasing it this fall but still no word on price. If I knew how much they were charging I’d either wait or go ahead and buy the QED. So I’m torn on patience vs price haha. Not an easy choice.

[COgolfengineer]

ILgolfer The QED is a good unit. Pros and cons of floor vs ceiling unit. Waiting for the eye mini could be tough. They say fall but could become winter or even 2023, hard to know for sure. I would get something now and you could always sell if you wanna switch to the eye mini later. Resale on LMs is pretty good. Do you need to accomodate lefties as well?

[ILgolfer]

I’m starting to think that as well plus I really like the idea of seeing the club impact on every shot. I don’t have to accommodate any lefties luckily unless one of my friends is a lefty which may explain their terrible games haha.

[COgolfengineer]

Not needing lefties and righties for off-center hitting makes it much easier. Seeing the video of the club impact is one of the best features of the qed and eyexo. And also being able to easily add swing cameras. Pull the trigger!

[schwame]

What about using a retractable screen and switching the orientation of the room

[JV17]

I have exactly 3 feet to the right side of the ball flight line in my room. No problem hitting there vs the center of the screen. As pointed out, it’s fine with no lefties hitting. Only concerns were random hosel rockets to the right. You just need the right padding or netting to knock the ball down without issue. After about 4 years, I flipped my screen around since it was looking a little used on the right side vs the center and left. No integrity issues at all.

[ILgolfer]

Very interesting and great to know. What screen do you have and what do you have to protect the right side then? I was thinking really heavy blackout curtains as I’ve read those are good.

[JV17]

Yes, that's what I have... Heavy blackout curtains with a net behind them. Have never had an issue... Knocks the hardest shots right down. I got a premium screen from Cory at Par2Pro.

[Brettster]

ILgolfer - I have 11'5" of width. You can see in my Forum post of my build, I used blackout curtain along 10' of the right side (there's even a window behind there), and I used 1.5" gym mats grommeted, and hung from grommets to the left wall (as it does not require the same amount of padding).

Here's my post:
https://golfsimulatorforum.com/forum...387#post365387

The blackout curtains (on right) are these:

https://tinyurl.com/BlackoutCurtains-7foot

The gym/exercise mats on the left are these:

https://tinyurl.com/TriFold-ExerciseMat

Good luck,
-Brett

[ILgolfer]

That looks great thanks for the info!