Build the Ultimate Indoor golf simulator on a budget

Build the Ultimate Indoor golf simulator on a budget

Right, so welcome back to the channel in what is a very different episode. I’m stored in what is quite possibly the best golf simulator that I’ve ever had the pleasure of experiencing. You’ll see it a lot on the channel. I film here most weeks and uh I’m going to talk to the man who built this room. I’ll talk about what kind of dimensions you need to achieve it. And we’ll also talk to you about a brand new projector that has been installed which has been specifically built for golf simulator. How does that make any difference? And the big question is, can you possibly replicate something like this in your own home? Because I think you can. Right. So, first of all, we’ll speak to Scott Boo. Scott, you’re the you’re the owner of this this whole facility, the driving range. We’ve got paddle tennis now. They open middle of September. So, really pleased with the outcome of those. And you will get me out there at one point, but for now, we just said on camera earlier, it’s probably the best facility that I’ve practiced in and used. So, I love it here. But you also spoke to me earlier on when when we first had a chat that you built this on a budget in a way, didn’t you? A lot of these things you’ve done yourself and I just thought a lot of our viewers could learn from what you’ve done and perhaps save themselves a few quid as well. Yeah, absolutely. The only things I didn’t get involved with were the electrics. Um, that was it. Uh, rest of it is is all done. And all the staff had a little go at making the uh the panels, the acoustic panels. We’ll start. Yeah, we’ll start there cuz those they can be really expensive. They’re them black panels behind me. Yeah. Uh mega expensive to buy. Very expensive, which is what prompted us to uh to have a go ourselves. And and a really effective finish as well. So a high-end finish. But what did you do? You bought some board. Yes, we bought some boards. Bought sheets of boards. Uh just 3 mil thick, that’s all. And then we bought a big roll of fake leather. Faux leather I think it’s called. And then we bought some foam. The foam. The important thing about the foam was certainly in a a facility here that’s a professional one um had to meet fire standards. So we did that um and then basically we measured the wall um cut the panels out. Yeah. Put the panel on top of the foam, cut the foam, cut the foam and then literally we went through 10,000 staples. Um just stapled it just like you would an upholster and that’s the outcome. So really pleased with it. It and it looks incredible. But when I first came in here, like I said, you don’t you you think this whole facility has been with no disrespect, but it’s a very professional finish. Professional finish. I know that. I realize that halfway through the sentence. Then you then you’ve got behind us, you got some pine uh finish on that wall again, which really nice finish. I’m going to correct you there cuz it’s actually beach. So that that they are beach slats, individual slats. Yeah. So, um we bought those individually just so we didn’t have to have panels. They can go all the way up. I then cut them all to length and they’re just nail gunned in. Yeah. Um to the the paneling that you’ll see at the back of the studio, which again, super finish. And then just finally, you want to talk about uh I don’t know what this stuff’s called, but the uh this is MDF. Uh so I don’t know what it is in America for all our foreign viewers, but literally bit of MDF. That’s plain. Um just literally bolt screwed to the wall. And then you’ve got the the little slats there. We just bought those and painted them. So we cut them all to size. uh and stuck them on. So, it looks really effective, but it literally is just some plain boards, 8×4 boards, and then the um the other bits that are on the on the fascia of it. I I’ll just literally cut to that size, and you can make them whatever you want. They’re a bit deeper at the bottom for for a skirting board effect. No, it it looks amazing. And you see that you see it every week on on the channel as well. I’m not going to talk about what you you created a a bar area here, which is fantastic as well. Some nice chairs, what have you. Maybe not something everybody would put in their home because I’m thinking people could perhaps build this in spare rooms in garages if they’ve got the space. Absolutely. Um you’ve got some great YouTube channels I noticed on We have got some great Yeah. Yeah. Well, we have Okay. Uh and then in terms of because of again what facility this is, you’re very much high-end with the with the launch monitor. So you’re Trackman. We’re Trackman. Yes. So we’ve been Trackman. So we’re we’re a driving range. We’re Trackman range out on the range. Um we teach with Trackman. and we custom fit with Trackman. So, we just felt we’d keep everything in the same family and yeah. Yeah, makes sense. I mean, very effective. So, so, and aside from the club data and all the rest of it, their simulator software is incredible, isn’t it? The course. Oh, it’s 502 courses now to choose from. I think that’s probably everyone’s biggest problem is what course do you want to play and they can’t choose one. There’s some amazing courses that you’ve you’ve probably never even heard of in countries that you don’t think as golf destinations. Yeah. But yeah, Trackman uh does everything that we want it to really. We get the odd individual coming in that just want their data. Yeah. But we get a lot more. It’s more for people coming in wanting to play the golf courses. And then finally, we’ve brought in and had a look at this uh bank of sensors, this projector to have a look at. Absolutely. Um so first of all, nice tidy little piece of kit compared to the other one. Smaller than the other one. Uh much quieter than the other one. Um so that’s noticeable, isn’t it? Very noticeable is the is the noise difference. Um very much so. Um really easy to set up. I’m a bit of a technophobe. Managed to do it all on my own. Big boy pants on today. Didn’t need any help. Um, so yeah, got that. And I would say, you know, looks nice and crisp on the on the screen. So, really impressed so far. I wasn’t here when you put it up. Unfortunately, I uh was otherwise engaged. What What he was ducking and diving the tough work. Yeah. Yeah. With relation to fitting the uh the screen size, a big thing this bank projector does. How easy was it to install and fit to those dimensions? Piece of cake. some controls come up. You tap left, top, left corner. You just move it. It moves it out. Couldn’t have been any easier. It really was. You move over to the right corner. Uh do the left, bottom left, bottom right, and suddenly Bob’s your uncle and you you’ve got it measured to your screen. So, it it really was really simp. Yeah, really simple. That’s something that they again suggested. It was very simple. It’s the first projector that has been specifically built with golf simulator in mind. Yes, I did I did notice that on the um on the actual projector itself it does say golf specific simulator. We’ll have a we’ll have a we’ll have a closer look and not me at the he’s a professional and uh some days we’ll we’ll see what the projector image is like and have a closer look at the bank as well at the moment but uh for the time being appreciate that thanks for having a little chat through thanks for having me on the channel and I think that like I said there’s clearly a way to do this with an incredibly good finish but maybe save a few quid along the way. I I would just to sorry to interrupt there but yeah um I would say there I think over a company coming in and doing it and doing it ourselves I’d say save somewhere in the region about 20 to 25,000 quite comfortably. There you go. Just a bit of hard work bit of your own time. U but yeah in terms of cost savings um yeah we we saved a huge amount. Now, if you’re going to consider doing this at home in your garage, like I said, then you’re going to want some dimensions from me and not necessarily of this room because that’s certainly not all this space behind the the Trackman that I’m stood at my feet now is not a necessity. It’s a it’s a luxury in this case and makes this room extra special. But from the screen to where I’m stood right now is 15 foot. Uh that’s particularly of interest if you’ve got Trackman because Trackman has to be uh I think it’s eight or nine foot behind the strike area. Slightly different if you buy uh other launch monitors that sit at the side. So you don’t need to concern yourself about that. But this kind of 15 ft gives you a nice distance between screen and your back wall. So you’re never going to strike the wall. You’re never going to sort of see it in your peripheral vision. It’s quite a comfortable distance. you could grab a little bit shorter if you weren’t using Trackman. The width of this particular facility is 12T 12/13T. Um, and again perhaps could pinch in a little bit there as well if you want to work in a smaller area. And then in terms of height, this is 9 ft. Again, something that I know from previous experiences when I’ve been using facilities that a little bit on the tight side, I get a little bit conscious of where the club is and start to swing a little bit differently. What you get in here with that 9 ft clearance is, you know, you’re swinging the club outside. You’ve got no idea in terms of where those walls, where those ceilings are. So, I think 9 ft is a nice clearance. again, you could probably come down a foot or so um and get away with being able to swing obviously up to driver and still be comfortable in doing that. So, those are key dimensions that you’re going to need uh to make sure you get an area you can hit from that you feel fairly comfortable with. So, this was the current projector that we uh that Scott’s been using for a couple of years. It’s from Panasonic. Decent bit of kit, pretty significant in terms of its size. Uh what we got sent from bank was the AK700 ST. Just want to check that. Uh I’ll show you on the ceiling. Unfortunately, I never got any pictures before it went up. It’s literally half the footprint of this Panasonic. The big difference for me uh and I come in here every Monday was when I walked in today, I was a little bit confused as to how this thing was sending a picture because it makes zero noise whatsoever. Whereas this sounded like there was a constant fan uh going off. The big difference um in terms of this golf simulator uh or the sorry the projector being designed for a golf simulator is the sharpness and also the colors and it works particularly well in um in not having to have the room in sort of full darkness. So we got full lighting uh behind the A12 assist with the camera but it’s still having no impact on the image you’ll see on the screen in the backdrop. So, I’ll put up some details on screen as to what the sort of technical spec is of this projector for those of you uh are that way inclined. All I can tell you is it’s extremely small, extremely quiet. It it projects an incredibly sharp image and uh I would obviously highly recommend and certainly it’s it’s a move forward from where we were with the uh Panasonic projector. There is a link in the description below uh for those of you who are interested in perhaps purchasing one of these things. And uh I’ve got to say thank you to Ben for sending it for us to try. And uh I think Scott’s quite impressed with it to be quite honest with you. Well, there’s a few balls off camera. We better hit one on. And uh well, I’ve got to say, I mean, the first thing to note is having a golf simulator is is the ultimate uh golfer’s dream. I suppose it’s uh it’s less of a luxury in many ways than it was. And I say that in the sense that it’s become more affordable. Launch monitors are a lot more affordable. And you can achieve high-end results with, as we’ve just discussed, a lot less of a budget than you perhaps would have four or five years ago. Um but yeah, if you’ve got a kind of den like this, then like it’s just it’s it’s a it’s so enjoyable. You get lost playing this uh this software that Trackman have got. You can just get lost for hours. It’s incredible. And as I say, they’ve got TV on in the background. It’s uh it’s nice to the idea of watching the golf while playing the golf, especially while it’s cold out in the UK right now. A bit left, I think. Yeah, just tugged it down the left a tad. It’s not too bad coming back. Oh, I don’t know. Oh, we got a bit of spin on going the right way. Just how good is that image? How good is that? It’s just so much fun. The only trouble is when you’re trying to film, I’m trying to find an area where I haven’t got the flicker of that light in my face. Hope you enjoyed that one. Something, like I said, a little bit different. Um, huge thank you to Ben uh for sending in that projector. Like I said, I think Scott is uh maybe a potential customer already. He’s loving what he’s seeing. And for me to use this facility, absolute joy. The idea of being able to build your own, build these kind of pads, build those walls, understanding the dimensions, and then it’s just a case of you um finding out a projector that is affordable. I’ll throw some on screen for you now, which give you an idea of where it’s at right now. There is a huge amount of choice, and to be fair, they vary across the budgets as well. It really again depends on what you want to do within your simulator room. If you just want to play golf, you’re not worried about data, then I would pay more attention to the kind of what’s available in terms of the gaming side of things. How realistic is that gaming element? So, that’s something to pay attention to. If you’re interested in club data, then obviously you need to make sure you I mean, Trackman is that ultimate measuring tool. Uh, but again, you’re paying a lot of money for it. I don’t think there’s anything left for me to say. All I do know is if you’ve got the space and if you’ve got the budget for any golf fan, then uh this is just an absolute dream. I suggest you start building now and get some practice in over the winter months and you’re all ready for the new season to go. For the time being, it’ll have to be my once a week visit down here to Chester and North Wales Golf Academy and uh I’ll get me fixed that way. Anyway, thanks as ever for watching. Hope you enjoyed that one. a little bit different. And uh I’ll see you soon.

Find out more about the BenQ AK700ST 4K Laser Golf Simulator Projector here : http://benqurl.biz/43ySrqB

We built our own Golf Simulator room and so could you, in todays video we take a trip to see how much it costs to build your own golf simulator room.

How to build the ultimate indoor golf simulator on a budget

#golfsimulator

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