$500 vs $50,000 Golf Simulator!

$500 vs $50,000 Golf Simulator!

The dream for so many of us is to build the perfect home golf simulator. On today’s video, we are going to explore options from the low end of the market for those that are just getting started and options all the way at the super luxury premium top of the market when folks have basically unlimited budgets. No matter where you are, today I’m going to give you some advice on what picks I would make if I was building a golf simulator. all the way from hundreds of dollars to tens of thousands of dollars. By the way, for all of the categories that we mentioned here today, I’ve got discount codes for you, not only to save money on the launch monitors, but on the enclosures and really all the accutrants here. So, I’ll leave those links down in the description for you. Let’s get to work. All right, so here’s how this is going to work. Today, I’m going to present to you indoor options as well as outdoor options. We got categories including indoor and outdoor super cheap, indoor and outdoor cheap, indoor and outdoor performance, indoor luxury, and indoor ultra luxury. Now, with many of these categories, there will be some crossover. So, as you’re watching this video, just know that each category is not an island of its own. You might be able to draw some pieces from one category and use them in another. That’s completely fine. But I wanted to present you a number of options to give you as much to work with as possible. All right, let’s dive in. First off, we’re going to start here with the indoor super cheap category. And if we’re talking about a launch monitor indoors that is really bestinass for the money, for me, it’s got to be the Square Golf launch monitor. This launch monitor is $699. It is optical, meaning it uses a camera to read shots and provide very accurate data. Generally, you want to have optical device if you possibly can. And historically, our options had been limited to Doppler radar devices, which outdoors perform well, but indoors struggle a little bit. Now, we finally got a really viable indoor optical option in the square. Now, when you’re building a super cheap indoor simulator, you’re probably not going to use a gaming PC. You’re going to use either a phone or a tablet. So, assuming you’re going to use your existing phone or tablet, there’s no cost there, but you are going to need probably a stand at least to view that data. I found a really cheap one here on Amazon for $17.99. This is from Sam Housing. Although there are a number of different options. You know how Amazon works. Sometimes it’s more expensive. Sometimes products get cheaper. But this one has good reviews. It’s got a 360° rotating swivel. It’s really all you need just to stand that thing up with your phone next to it. The other thing you’re going to need is to trap the balls somehow. Make sure that they’re not flying all over your house and putting dents in the walls and ceilings. So, I would highly recommend a 10×7 golf tent as a really super cheap option. There are a bunch of these out on Amazon, but the one I found here was $58.99. The brand is Norar, but like I said, there are so many different brands. The prices are always fluctuating on Amazon, but you should be able to find something right around $50, $60, no problem, and it’s going to do the trick for your super cheap simulator setup. All these 10 x7 tents, by the way, come with a three surface hitting mat. It’s got fairway, rough, and then high rough that you can use. It’s not great quality, but it would do the trick in a super cheap setup. Now, the other option if you don’t want to go with the tent is this zeal net screen. So, basically, it is netting that’s going to protect both the side, your walls, as well as the top, your ceiling. And you can actually project an image onto this later on if you step up to a projector. We’ll be talking about projectors as we get into the higher priced categories, but that would be a nice thing to have. And here on Amazon right now, it’s $265.99. So, very good value. Now, I would highly recommend you invest a little bit of money here in the beginning on a golf hitting mat. Like I said, that tent comes with a mat, but when you’re using a thin surface, you have a big opportunity to injure yourself, and that’s not what we want to do. We want to protect our joints because that’s something you can never go back on and fix. Everything else you can improve, but you cannot fix your joint health. So, I highly recommend you step up to a better mat. So, this Ghost Sports Elite mat on Amazon is $149.99. It’s 15 mm thick. It’s going to do the trick for you. It’s not as good as some of the other ones that are out on our list. And if you’ve got the money, I highly recommend you invest in a mat alongside a launch monitor. Those are the two big expenses that you should have building one of these things. It is worth its weight and gold to get a good one. But the Go Sport Elite mat is my pick here in the super cheap category. Here’s your total for the indoor super cheap setup. So, that’s our indoor option. Now, let’s talk about our outdoor super cheap options. Outdoors, that’s where you can get away with one of these Doppler devices as I mentioned before because you’re generally going to have more space. It’s also going to be able to see the ball flight a little bit better. So, if you’re out on a range, you’re going to get really accurate results from a Doppler device. But even hitting into a net, you should get very accurate results. And my pick here in the super cheap category is going to be the Garmin R10, which right now is $399 on play better.com’s website. Play better is the home of the best pricing on the internet, and there is a massive deal going on right now for the Garmin R10. So, generally this lives around the $599 range, but right now $200 off, that is by far my pick here in the super cheap category. Even at $599, it would be my pick. This is again where I would recommend that golf tent, the 10×7 golf tent for $58.99. Again, it includes that hitting mat. You’re going to get the iPhone iPad stand for $17.99. And then again, you can upgrade that mat to the Go Sport Elite mat for $149.99. Here’s your total for the outdoor super cheap setup. All right, so there’s our super cheap category. Next, we’re going to the indoor cheap category. In the indoor cheap category, again, we’re going to stick with that square golf launch monitor at $6.99. But now, we are going to upgrade our golf simulator to an enclosure. And Carl’s Place offers a DIY enclosure that is really a great value. I actually DIYed my own enclosure in the beginning, and the Carl’s Place I put in later was actually less money overall, and so I should have gone with that to begin with. But the Carl’s Place DIY enclosure starts at $999. Again, it’s super easy to set up, toolfree, and you’re going to have a really nice high quality product for a very, very low price. Again, it is the enclosure that I have in my simulator room to this day. Now, when it comes to a mat, here’s again where you can invest a little bit more coin and get something that’s going to be really high quality. I’m going to suggest here the Monster Mat. This starts at $419 and it is worth every single penny because a lot of mats when you hit a fat shot, it sort of bounces and you don’t get a realistic effect. Well, the Monster Mat doesn’t do that. If you hit a fat shot, you will feel the fat shot on the Monster Mat. It’s also got nice thick padding to protect your joints and I find it to be really durable. I’ve used Monster Mats for years. Fantastic quality. And also, there’s a discount code for them which I’m going to leave down there for you in the description specific to the Let’s Play Through community. You can save a few bucks. My other recommendation for hitting mat in this category is going to be the $4.99 hot shot hitting mat. It’s available at playb better.com. Again, really nice thick premium. It’s going to stand the test of time and you won’t be having to change mats every few months like some of these really cheap options you find on Amazon. Again, we’re going to need that $1799 iPhone iPad stand. And the last thing we’re going to need is for that nice Carl’s Place DIY enclosure to have a projector that will literally project onto the screen. My pick here is going to be the BenQ AH30 ST, which at retail price is $14.99. You should be able to find it less out there on Amazon. I even bought my first 1080p BenQ projector used for about $500. So, I would think anywhere from about $500 to $800 these days, you should be able to find a really nice 1080p projector. And that is going to do the trick here for our cheap indoor setup. Let’s go to our outdoor cheap setup. Our outdoor cheap setup, again, I will recommend a Doppler device. There are two really good ones right now. The first one is going to be the Rapsoto MLM2 Pro. This has a retail price of $699. Again, sometimes there are deals out there, but there aren’t any right now that I can see. My other pick, if you want to go just a little bit more premium, is going to be the Flight Scope Meo Gen 2. It’s something I really think can grow with you into the future. I think they’re going to be updating this software here in 2026 to make it even more powerful. But both of these devices are very accurate for Doppler devices. And both really are kind of fusion devices where they’re not only using Doppler technology, but they also have onboard cameras which they are using in order to really get accurate data. They’re both great systems and again I should have some discount codes down there below for you to save some money on them. Now on our outdoor setup here in the cheap category, I’m going to recommend a net that really is the best net out there. there. I got a chance to check this one out on the channel recently. It’s the Net Return Pro Series Junior V2. This is only $295. I say only because some of these nets can be $500, $600, but this is a smaller size. It is going to be really high quality, and the net return system is really great at getting the ball to flow right back to your feet. As long as you’ve got a hard surface between you and the net, it’s going to come right back to you. So, it’s really high quality. Buy this one once. You won’t have to buy one for a very long time, if ever. I’m all about saving money, of course, in this category, but I’m all about not having to buy two, three times either. And that’s a nice high quality hitting net that you will have a long time. Again, I’m either going to recommend the Monster Mat here or the Hot Shot hitting mat. Both these will be great outdoors for you. We’re going to need to use our iPhone or iPad with that 1799 iPad stand. And here on your screen is the total for my outdoor cheap setup. All right, now we’re moving into the performance category. And we’ll start here with the indoor performance. My pick for a launch monitor. Again, an optical device that has extremely extremely accurate data coming out of it is going to be the i Mini Lite. Now, right now, the I Mini Lite is 2750. Again, that’s full MSRP. As we get into the holidays, we’ll likely see this price come down a bit, I assume, cuz we saw it last year. And now that once we step into this category, we’re going to graduate from using an iPad or iPhone and really start to think about using a gaming PC because the software and the simulators that are available for these more expensive units are really going to require that firepower. Now, a gaming PC is going to run you about $1,100. I walked into my local Costco and saw that somewhere in I would say $1,000 to $1,500 range, you should be able to find a really good gaming PC. Make sure you check your launch monitor’s requirements, but most of them are going to require a graphics card of like an RTX 3060 or better generally these days is that would kind of be the minimum, but most of these gaming PCs that you’ll find. Try to get the best graphics card you can. An RTX 5000 series, something like that is pretty standard nowadays. In the indoor performance category, again, I’m going to recommend our Carl’s Place DIY enclosure, which should run you right around $1,000. And that BenQ projector at $14.99. Again, a 1080p short throw projector is really nice to have. And you might be able to save some money from that price that I’m quoting here as well. But here’s our total in the indoor performance category. Let’s move on to the outdoor performance category. Outdoor, I’m going to recommend the $199 Bushnell Launch Pro. That is a rock solid launch monitor. Again, that’s going to provide ball data only at that price. But you can upgrade down the road if you want to add clubface data. The other option in this category that I’ll give you is the i Mini from Uniore. You can’t use the light model because that’s really an indoor only unit. But the I Mini is a great indooroutdoor unit. You could even take it to the range with you. Both the Bushnell Launchp Pro and the I Mini. Super portable. Great build quality. You will love those launch monitors. So accurate. Now outdoor, we’re not going to use that Carl’s Place enclosure. We’re going to go with the net return. But this time, if we’ve got a little bit more budget, we’re going to add some protection to our top and to our sides. So, we’ll include the nofly zone and their side netting. So, the total on this one is going to be $1343 and up depending on size. But for that price, you should be able to get a really nice size that’s going to protect you and your neighbors from flying golf balls out there. We’re going to go ahead and pick up our monster mat or our hot shot hitting mat again. And instead of a dedicated desktop gaming PC, you can opt here for a laptop for an outdoor environment. I would suggest a laptop. I would not suggest a laptop if you can avoid it, but you can’t really avoid it outdoors. And I think you should be able to pick up a gaming laptop for about $11.99. Here on your screen is our total for our outdoor performance category. Now, it’s going to get really fun here as we move into our indoor luxury category. This is where you start to get some really exciting builds. In our indoor luxury category, this is where we can start to think about an overhead unit. And really my favorite this year is going to be the IXR from Uniore. What I love about it so much is the fact that you get clubface data without having to add stickers. It’s a super accurate device. Again, something that can grow with you if you want to add things later on like their swing optics cameras to be able to use their AI trainer, which is incredible. They’ve got pressure mats so you can dial in your balance, all sorts of things. It’s really cool system, but again, overhead mounted is where you want to go when you’re getting into the luxury space. This one still very reasonably priced, I think, at $6,999. We’re going to need an enclosure, of course, and Carl’s Place has a Pro enclosure, which is even better quality than their DIY. And this one’s going to run you starting at $2979. We’re also going to upgrade our mat here in our luxury category to the fiberbuilt studio golf grass. This is going to be $11.99, but it’s going to be a super high quality surface for you. It’s also got some different types of turf, so you can play it off different lies. We’re going to need a gaming PC. Again, we’ll call that $1,100. And we’re going to upgrade our projector here in this category to the BenQ AK700 ST. This is a 4,000 LUM 4K short throw laser golf simulator projector and it’s going to run $28.99. Super crisp colors, accurate portrayal, 4K resolution, super bright, and really optimized for indoor simulator golf. It’s fantastic if you’ve got the money to spend. Here in your screen is the total for our indoor luxury setup. We’re getting up there in price, but we’ve got one more category, and it’s time here for our indoor ultra luxury build. This is the penultimate golf simulator that I can imagine building here right now in 2025. And again, I would opt for an overhead unit so righties and lefties can play. You want something from a name you can trust. You want something with super accurate data and something that is going to stand the test of time. For me, that is going to be the Foresight Golf Falcon. This is going to be a $15,000 MSRP. Now, you’re also going to need an enclosure, and Play Better sells a curved Carl’s Place enclosure. The curvature is going to give you a much more immersive experience, make you feel like you’re literally stepping onto a golf course. This enclosure is going to be near $5,000. The good news, though, is that Play Better offers a combo package. For $19,893.95, you can get both that Foresight Falcon packaged with a curved Carl’s Place enclosure. It would be a fantastic, fantastic ultra premium setup for any golf simulator enthusiast. Now, you’re going to need a gaming PC, and it looks cheap here at $1,100, but again, that’s just what it’s going to cost you. Here’s again where I would upgrade our projector to the top of the line. It’s actually the one that’s in my golf simulator studio right now. It’s the BenQLU 935 ST. This is 5500 lumen, so it’s even more bright. A short throw laser projector. This is going to run you $3,999 at MSRP, so about 4,000 there. We’re going to upgrade our turf to something ultra premium. Also add the ability to add some cups so you can putt into your simulator, which is really awesome. My pick here is going to be the fiberbuilt hitting mat and putting system at $3,149. And then if you just want to go absolutely crazy and get the most lifelike experience you possibly can, this is where I’m going to recommend the Zen stage, which will literally shift and tilt depending on the lie that you have on the golf course. It’s crazy stuff, but also it is the best way to practice. It’s going to cost you though $20,000 approximately to install one of these Zenolf stages, but that would really elevate your ultra luxury simulator to the next level. Here on your screen are the options. Here again, showing both the Fiberbuilt hitting mat and the Zenolf floor. Either of these options is going to come with a hefty price tag, but if you got the money, you are going to love it. So, there’s my picks for super cheap all the way down to ultra luxury. I would love to know down in the comments if you think that I got it right or I got it wrong. Let me know below. The great news is that we have so many options here in 2025. And again, you can sort of pick and choose from these categories to build the perfect simulator for you. These are just my subjective opinions. The other great thing is that where you start with now is not where you will end up. So over time you can start to add some of these things and make it better and better. As I mentioned, I got discounts for most of the stuff we mentioned down below that are exclusive to the Let’s Play through community. Hit that subscribe button and I’ll catch you back here next time on another edition of Let’s Play Through.

My guide on how to build a golf simulator on any budget from super cheap to ultra luxury.

Golf Simulators (Save up to 10% with code “LPT”) 👇

Square Launch Monitor: https://www.playbetter.com/products/square-golf-simulator-launch-monitor?ghref=7209%3A118076

Garmin R10: https://www.playbetter.com/products/garmin-approach-r10-portable-launch-monitor-simulator?ghref=7209%3A118076

Mevo Gen 2: https://www.playbetter.com/products/flightscope-mevo-gen2-golf-launch-monitor?ghref=7209%3A118076

Uneekor Eye Mini Lite: https://www.playbetter.com/products/uneekor-eye-mini-lite-golf-launch-monitor?ghref=7209%3A118076

Uneekor Eye XR: https://www.playbetter.com/products/uneekor-eye-xr-golf-launch-monitor-simulator?ghref=7209%3A118076

Foresight Falcon:
Foresight Falcon with PlayBetter SimStudio™ COMPLETE Package | Golf Simulator Studio with Impact Screen, Enclosure, Side Barriers, Hitting/Putting Mats & Projector

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Amazon Items 👇

Ipad Stand: https://amzn.to/42kbqEZ

Tent: https://amzn.to/4nwoFed

Net Screen: https://amzn.to/46vayzH

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Enclosures 👇

Carl’s Place DIY: https://www.playbetter.com/products/carls-place-diy-golf-simulator-enclosure-kit-with-impact-screen?ghref=7209%3A118076

Carl’s Place Pro Enclosure: https://www.playbetter.com/products/carls-place-pro-golf-simulator-enclosure-kit-with-impact-screen?ghref=7209%3A118076

Carl’s Place Curved Enclosure: https://www.playbetter.com/products/carls-place-curved-golf-simulator-enclosure-kit-with-impact-screen?ghref=7209%3A118076

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Mats

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