Help designing a dual-purpose living room golf simulator

[Jesplusa]

Hi everyone,

I’m looking for some advice on how to design a golf simulator in our living room.

I’ve attached a few SketchUp images showing the room, its shape and dimensions only. I haven’t decided on a simulator layout yet, so I’m very open to ideas on how you would approach this space.

The main requirement is that this needs to remain a proper living room as well as a golf simulator. Ideally, the simulator should be relatively unobtrusive when not in use, without compromising too much when it’s time to play.

A few requirements:

• It needs to accommodate both right- and left-handed players.
• I’m flexible regarding the launch monitor, although the ProTee VX is currently my preferred option.
• It will be used both for serious practice/training and for playing simulator golf with my kids during the Swedish winter.
• I’m open to retractable screens, curtains, movable furniture or other creative solutions.
• Since I haven’t committed to a layout yet, I’m happy to consider completely different approaches.

I’d really appreciate any suggestions on screen placement, hitting direction, hitting position, launch monitor choice and how to make the simulator integrate well with the living room.

If this were your room, how would you design it?

Any ideas, potential problems or examples of similar dual-purpose setups would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

[marcleonti]

I have a sim at home. I completely spec'd it out and built it myself about two years ago, learned a few things along the way, so I think I'm qualified to answer this question. Unfortunately, I'm in the US, so I'm gonna give you all my numbers in feet because that's just the way it is. I know, I hate it too.

Your room isn't big enough. I'm cringing as I write this because I know somebody is gonna get on here and argue about it, but I guess that's the beauty of asking a bunch of random people for advice. My space is 17.5 feet wide, the tee is in the dead center of the room, and it accommodates right and left handed players with almost no room to spare. A close friend is 6'5" tall and he told me it took him a few months before he was truly convinced he wasn't going to hit the wall behind him in his backswing. I chose not to feed into his anxiety and tell him he was only about six inches away. I would say the absolute minimum width is 17 feet.

My room is 19.5 feet deep, and I have very little room to spare. You need 12 inches minimum between the screen and the wall behind it, and at that distance the sides of the screen need to be pulled a little snug, otherwise the balls will hit the wall through the screen. The problem with that is it makes the screen like a trampoline and the balls bounce off it back at the player. It's more annoying than unsafe. Nobody is gonna get injured, but I had my setup like this for a while and I can assure you even at slow speeds a golf ball to the head or elbow hurts a little bit. The solution is to leave the sides of the screen unattached, but this will require more like 18 inches of space behind the screen. For the same reason, you can't stand too close to the screen. Your tee really should be at least 10 feet away from the screen. You might be able to get away with 9 feet, but 8 feet will definitely be scary. Let's say your risk tolerance is moderate and you put the tee nine feet away. Now you need to swing the club. A 6 foot tall golfer is going to need an absolute minimum of 6 feet of space between the tee and the back wall, and that is going to feel scary close. Add that up, 6 feet wall to tee, 9 feel tee to screen, 1.5 feet screen to wall, you're at 16.5 feet deep. That's a very tight space, and I honestly don't think I'd be able to swing the club normally. My friend who is 6'5" definitely wouldn't be able to. If there are three players in the room and one of them is left handed it's slightly annoying because nobody can be on the same side of the room as the person swinging the club, so it's like a game of musical chairs. And you still need to put a computer in the room somewhere.

Last piece is the height. My screen is 9' tall, the projector is mounted basically above the golfer exactly 10 feet off the floor. There really isn't much wiggle room here. The projector has to go in a certain spot to create the image, and you need 9.5 feet of overhead space for the swing.

You might be able to make it work for righthanded golfers only, but it's going to be tight and you're gonna have to deal with the sloped ceiling. I know what I spent building mine, and I'm very thankful my room isn't any smaller because I'd be upset if I spent that kind of money and felt like the space was too small to truly enjoy.