WHAT’S YOUR REACTION?
The largest and most frequent mistakes in planning indoor golf are made by high end home owners.
You might not think it’s much of a challenge to install a golf sim. But after having seen countless unconsidered sacrifices for space by jamming an outdoor sport into a relatively tiny space, I predict that any design ideas you might have for your sim have flaws.
Golf is played outside. Higher is ALWAYS better, wider is ALWAYS better, and deeper is ALWAYS better. And, do reality checks; drivers are long–the footprint of a drive can be 11’ long by 7’ wide by almost 10’ high in some cases. And that’s just the footprint of the swing. It’s best to plan for 12 feet of ball flight and at least a foot of open area between the screen and the wall behind it. And don’t forget a comfortable 8-15 feet behind the sim.
I’ve seen folks dig existing basements deeper, knock down walls, expand basements, and jam sims in tragically short or narrow spaces, sometimes eliminating left-handed play.
One guy put his sim in his living room. Another really rich guy made the sacrifice of a giant beam passing through the center of the top of the screen.
My favorite was the guy who crammed his sim into a 12’ wide space in a dark corner of his basement where his pool room had two oversized tables and a massive bar and a home theater bigger than some nice theaters. It was a five-minute walk from the refrigerator to the sink in his kitchen.
A great standard sim area is 15-16’ wide, 10-12’ high, and 25-30’ deep. Going up to 25 feet deep enables real excitement with a super wide curved screen–maybe up to 180 degrees. And, getting that ceiling as high as you can–at least 10 feet–makes a big difference.
My latest company offers free expertise in golf sim planning. We can help you plan your ultimate, high-end sim, but we can also apply our Nano Science to designing a simulator you can have in a room 14’ long by 10’ wide by 8’ high.
Article written by: Bill Bales
