I am going to give a detailed breakdown of the whole build below, see costs in the images. TLDR:

I upgraded from a Garmin R10 hanging net setup in my garage to a retractable screen with projector with a Square launch monitor! The big items are the Metech Roller 13ft , Spectrum Poly Spacer Screen, Benq TH671ST (FB Marketplace), and the Square Launch Monitor. The goal was to have a setup that allows us to continue to use the garage to park cars, but also have a decent setup for myself and my sons to use during the winter to get ready for the next season. When all is said and done, I am right about $3500 dollars for the upgrade, and about to spend another $250 to get my GSPro license back.

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Long detailed walkthrough. Items purchased, with some installation notes:

1) Metech Retractable Roller ($616), started the build with just getting this roller in place. The roller I purchased was a 13ft roller, which is about 70% the width of my garage. The Metech roller came in multiple roller parts, and somewhere someone had suggested using a silicone lubricant when assembling the roller. I missed this, so it took some time and a lot of effort to pound the roller pieces together using a mallet. Once together I attached some 1×4 to the ceiling of my garage, and then attached the brackets to that so we had a good hold over the studs in the ceiling. This worked out well. I bungeed up the roller (see picture), and then checked the measurement with the roller up against the other side to get the second bracket in place. Very happy with the roller, very heavy duty, works great!

2) Spectrum Poly Spacer ($391) – This screen is great, super heavy duty, great picture. I did have a snafu on purchase, but Spectrum was really great about it. I contacted directly for a custom size, but the first one they sent exceeded the size of the roller, and they were able to do a quick exchange. I'd say the fit is perfect now. No wasted space. The screen attaches with Velcro across the roller. I have about 1 roll around at the top of the screen when it's down. I don't have great ceiling height in the garage, it's about 9 feet (I'm a tall guy with a shallow swing, so thankfully this works). I put a two inch battle rope at the bottom of the screen to weigh it down ($50 from amazon). So far this works well, but maybe a little heavy, in retrospect a little lighter would have probably been better at 1.5 inch battle rope.

3) Blackout pull down shades – Because the square won't work well with natural light, needed to install a couple inexpensive blackout curtains from amazon. Going wider than the window (sized a bit larger than the frame) effectively keeps the sunlight out and makes for a very dark garage even in daytime. The shades were a cinch to install.

4) Projector: Benq TH671ST ($600). Discussed plenty here. Bought used for 600 on FB marketplace another golfer looking to upgrade their setup. Been very impressed with this so far. Wanted the screen up before purchasing the projector to get the measurements for the throw right when purchasing. The Benq is great because it has the zoom and keystone for centering vertically, which allows for a little play in the setup which I needed. I have a 2 car garage with separate rails through the center of the garage for each door, this interfered some with where I could place the projector. I didn't like the idea of some of the very short throws (Optoma) because I had a fear we would sky balls in to the projector, so the Benq options worked out really well with it's slightly longer, but still short throw. It was a tough time getting things straightened out with the 20 dollar mount I purchased, but I eventually got it to my liking. May still need a bit of work keeping leveled, and want to add some protection around the projector (metal baskets?)

5) Ceiling protection. Foam mats from Walmart ($95) . Took some tile gym mats from amazon, dry wall screws to the ceiling. These have been hit a ton already, and they kill the ball speed and don't leave marks in the ceiling. Really happy with how this came out. Also put up some semi-recessed LED lights to replace the bulbs that were there before. So far no issues. They were 12 dollars a piece, so if they break I just replace . If that becomes a continual thing, I may need to add some additional protection to the lights (polycarbonate/Lexan sheet?). Also added some gutter foam in the space between the roller and ceiling. Very happy with ceiling protection.

6) Side Curtains. I initially didn't want to do this at all, but after one session with the kids and a few shanks it was imperative. I bought some cheap blackout curtains from Amazon that I thought would be heavy duty. They were not, and actually a little short! This will be one of the first things I replace. I bought some aluminum track that I mounted on 1×4' next to the screen brackets. In a previous thread someone suggested using Velcro on the screen and the curtains. I did this, and it worked amazing. It creates a great finished look along with actually capturing the balls in the corner between screen a curtain. Nothing has gotten through this setup yet, except at that bottom because the curtains are too short.

7) Flooring. ($351 so far) – I got stall mats from Tractor Supply. I've used these in gyms before and have been great. I wanted something that could also be parked on. This batch has had some of the worst off-gassing of any that I purchased, and one week on it's still reeking of that rubber smell. The bigger disappointment here is that while they deaden the bounce compared the concrete or carpet, it's not enough. I think I will need to attach a carpet pad, and perhaps some fake turf carpet to each panel to further deaden the bounce. Right now have a carpet sitting on top which helps a little.

8) Launch monitor. Square ($741). Been discussed here plenty too. My take, it's an amazing budget setup. I debated about getting the Bushnell LP, but then realized I wanted to go back to GSPro and that was going to be 500+ 250 a year for that solution. Just been playing with the Square software so far, and really impressed with the courses. They are well done, and fun… about a penny a hole per player is fine by me. I still will eventually switch back to GSPro to play some of the local courses around me, plus some of the great courses the community has produced.

With the square so far for me seems pretty accurate. My ball flight feels right for my mis-hits. Shanks are shanks, pushes are pushes, slices are slices! I need to be punished on those bad shots. It feels quite a bit superior to my Garmin R10 in shot tracking. Less misses, more realistic spin stats. It allows for more room too since we don't have to place the Launch Monitor behind the golfer. I do get misses though and still tweaking the height placement and leveling of the square. My kids experience the misses more than I do, so could be a swing speed issue. Could also be poor leveling and height… in short time hope to figure this out.

The putting seems really good, but the greens in the app are super tough. There are some settings that will 'slow' them down some and need to try this. Chipping seems to be pretty accurate too. Even my chipper reads feel pretty good.

I currently have a severe case of indoor swing syndrome, and can't seem to hit my longer clubs well at all. I need to spend some time opening up my swing inside. The low ceiling plus the garage setup just need to get confident with. I also seem to be holding back some because I am getting a bit too much bounce back from he screen is also likely culprit of shots feeling a bit short. I have good data from Garmin watch on my real world distances, so hopefully I can get the metrics to start coming together.

Of note…the first shot by my son shanked into the Square… I bought the spike frugal fixer protector, and no problems at all. It protected perfectly.

9) I already had several pieces from last go around.. Bullseye hitting stirp with a Rawhide mat. I have several laptops from work with NVidia GPUs in them. Currently only using my main laptop to run things, but thinking about purchasing dedicated

by genericwguy

9 Comments

  1. johngalt192

    Looks great. Thanks for the detailed information. I am finishing up my build and might borrow a variation of your ceiling protection solution. 

    I wish I had heard about the silicone lubricant on the MEtechs roller. I also had a really hard time getting that together. I think its slightly warped due to all the pounding. And it crimped the end just a bit where the motor needs to slide in, so I had to do some bending to get that it. And the 2 pieces didn’t align perfectly, so I couldn’t slide the screen into the notch and had to use double sided tape.

  2. Next_Ad3660

    Sweet setup! Makes me wish I could’ve gone for a wider screen, but I maxed out my usable space unfortunately, and could only get away with 4:3.

    I switched from r10 to square as well and it’s a night and day difference. Square is awesome! So much more accurate to what my shots actually do in real life. I just upgraded to GSPRO, which did present some challenges with their connector, but going back to the previous OpenAPI license vs the official gspro square license seemed to fix the issues I was having. Honestly though, the square app really is pretty killer. Worked flawlessly on my android tablet, never had connection issues, never had a single misread or no read, and it looks pretty awesome too for just running on a tablet. Buying a PC and GSPRO probably wasn’t actually necessary for me in hindsight but I convinced myself I had to have it.

    It’s surprising to me you’re experiencing no reads and misreads from time to time. Like I said, I literally never had a single one while using only the square app before switching to gspro. It wouldn’t make sense to me that it’s because of slow club speed from your kids because it reads short pitch shots, short chips and of course putts. There’s gotta be something setup wise that’s causing that, id guess. Is it possible that you or the kids may have just accidentally had the ball slightly outside of the hitting zone without realizing it (it definitely would be nicer if the hitting zone was a bit bigger) ? Are you using tpx balls? Could be the height maybe? Mine is on a mat which is level with my hitting strip, but sits up a small amount higher due to it being in a case. I also have mine kind of locked in place because I noticed it would very slowly and gradually start kind of spinning away and moving a little bit from the vibration of hitting the mats.

    Anyway, sick setup! Enjoy!

  3. XstalProject

    What’s up with Spectrum Poly Spacer? They also sent me the wrong size, five inches longer than what I ordered. I’m waiting for my replacement.

    You mentioned you have a lot of bounce back from the screen. How far are you hitting from the screen?

  4. Do you guys like hitting in the dark like that? I cant do it

  5. supercoolmatt6000

    Love this in the middle of mine.

  6. GarrulousAbsurdity

    Appreciate the detailed info bro. Sim looks great. Congrats!

  7. _goofballer

    How high is your ceiling and do you have issues with longer clubs? You mention indoor swing syndrome but idk if that means “I’m afraid to hit the ceiling” or “I will 100% hit the ceiling”. I’m about to move into a new place that has a killer garage but the ceiling are 9.5’ and 10’ is the magic number I see around here. I’m wondering if I’ll be able to swing driver. FWIW I’m 6’2” and have heard player height matters as well.

  8. embo500

    Did you try the Square without the blackout window cover first, or did you go straight to using them? I’m looking at a similar setup for my garage, but I’m curious how bad it is without the blackout covering even though I’ll probably end up covering mine anyway.

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