---
title: "Carl's Place DIY vs Pro enclosure: the real question is whether you own a mitre saw"
url: "https://ifrothgolf.com/read/carls-place-diy-vs-pro-enclosure"
type: "comparison"
topic: "simulators"
author: "Marcus Bell"
published: "2026-08-06T10:00"
publisher: "ifrothgolf"
---


# Carl's Place DIY vs Pro enclosure: the real question is whether you own a mitre saw

> The $2,900 gap between the two Carl's Place kits buys exactly two things: framing you don't have to build, and a screen matched to your room's light. Here's the honest test for which side of it you belong on, and why a DIY build quietly keeps costing more than the receipt says.

## In short

- The DIY kit gives you the expensive part — the screen — and leaves you the framing. It is the right buy if your room is dark, your walls are square and you can genuinely build. Otherwise the Pro kit's included framing and lighting-matched screen earn the gap, and a lot of DIY builds close it anyway by buying timber twice. If you only want to hit balls indoors, a net beats both.

If your walls are square, your room is dark, and you have cut a mitre before, buy the [Carl's Place DIY Enclosure Kit](https://ifrothgolf.com/product/carls-place-diy-enclosure) and put the saved money into the projector. If any of those three is false, buy the [Pro Enclosure Kit](https://ifrothgolf.com/product/carls-place-pro-enclosure) and stop reading. That is the entire decision, and the fact that it takes about ten seconds to answer honestly is why the price gap between the two — roughly $2,900 — looks so much scarier on a product page than it does in a garage.

What follows is the long version, because most people get one of the three wrong.

## What the extra actually buys

The DIY kit is a premium impact screen and a nylon surround. That is genuinely most of the enclosure — the screen is the expensive, hard-to-get-right part, and the surround is what stops a thinned wedge redecorating the wall behind you. What you do not get is a frame. You get a shopping list and a set of dimensions, and the job of turning a room into a square, rigid, plumb rectangle that the screen can be tensioned against.

The Pro kit is that same idea with the framing included and a screen specification chosen for your lighting conditions rather than left as a default. Two things, then: labour you do not perform, and a decision you do not have to make correctly. Whether that is worth four figures depends entirely on how good you are at the first one and how much you know about the second.

## The DIY kit is not the budget option

This is the part the internet gets backwards. The DIY kit is not the cheap enclosure; it is the enthusiast's shortcut. It exists so that someone who is perfectly capable of building a frame does not also have to source and tension a screen, which is the bit amateurs genuinely cannot improvise.

Which means the failure mode is not that DIY builders overspend on golf gear. It is that they underestimate timber. A sim frame is not a bookshelf — it wants to be rigid enough that a driver strike does not shudder the screen, square enough that the projected image is not a trapezoid, and plumb enough that the surround hangs without gaps that let light leak in from behind. Plenty of people buy timber twice. Some buy it three times. Add the second run to the merchant, the tools you did not own, the weekend you lost to a frame that turned out to be eleven millimetres out at one corner, and the gap narrows a long way before you have hit a ball.

The honest test is not 'am I handy'. It is: have you built something square, at ceiling height, that had to stay square under repeated impact? If the answer is a shelf and a flat-pack wardrobe, the framing is a bigger job than you are picturing.

## The screen-and-light problem is the real differentiator

The second half of the gap gets ignored, and it is the half that decides how the bay actually looks. Screen material is not a single spec you upgrade linearly. It is a match between the fabric's gain and colour and how much ambient light your room lets in, played off against how many lumens your projector throws. Get the pairing wrong and you do not get a slightly worse picture, you get a washed-out grey course that no amount of settings-fiddling fixes.

The Pro kit builds that pairing decision into the purchase. On the DIY side, you are making it yourself, which is fine if you understand the trade and expensive if you do not. We have written the whole thing up in [impact screen colour versus projector lumens](https://ifrothgolf.com/read/impact-screen-colour-vs-projector-lumens) rather than repeat it here — read that before you choose either kit, because it also tells you whether a projector like the [BenQ TK710STi](https://ifrothgolf.com/product/benq-tk710sti) and its 3,200-lumen 4K short-throw output is enough for your room, or whether you need to fix the room first.

The shorthand: a dark, windowless garage is forgiving and makes DIY screen selection low-risk. A converted room with a window, a pale ceiling and a door you cannot black out is where a mismatched screen shows up worst, and where paying someone to have already made the call is worth real money.

## The option neither kit wants you to consider

Here is the uncomfortable one. For a large number of people reading this, the correct purchase is not an enclosure at all. It is a net.

A bad enclosure — a soft frame, a light-washed screen, a surround with gaps — is worse to use than a good net, and it costs several times more. [The Net Return Premium (Pro Series V2)](https://ifrothgolf.com/product/net-return-pro-v2) rolls the ball back to your feet, which sounds trivial and is in fact the single feature that determines whether you finish a practice session or stop after twenty balls to go and collect them. If your goal is swing reps through the winter rather than playing Pebble Beach on a screen, the net is not the compromise version of a sim. It is the better buy, and we would rather say so than sell you the wrong thing.

Buy an enclosure when you specifically want the projected image: courses, on-screen ball flight, people round to play. Buy a net when you want to hit balls at home. Those are different products that happen to live in the same corner of the garage.

## The thing both kits assume you already sorted

Neither enclosure includes a floor, and an undersized mat undoes a well-built bay faster than anything else on this page. Standing on carpet or concrete while hitting off a small mat changes your relationship to the ball by however thick the mat is, every single swing, and you will groove that. A full stance-and-strike surface like the [PlayBetter SimStudio 5x5 mat](https://ifrothgolf.com/product/playbetter-simstudio-mat) puts you on the same level you are hitting from. Budget for it as part of the enclosure, not after it.

## Who each one is for

Buy the DIY kit if you have real carpentry ability and the tools to go with it, your room is dark or blackout-able, your walls and ceiling are close to square, and you would genuinely enjoy the build. That is not a small list, but the people it describes get the same screen for a fraction of the outlay, and they should not be talked out of it.

Buy the Pro kit if your room has windows you cannot cover, if your walls are out of true or your ceiling slopes, if you do not own the tools, or if three free weekends are worth more to you than the difference. Also buy it if you are the sort of person who will be irritated forever by a frame that is a few millimetres off. You will see it in the image every session.

Buy neither if what you actually want is to hit balls indoors. Buy the net.

## The verdict

The Pro kit is the better product and the DIY kit is the better value, and neither of those statements settles anything, because this is a decision about you rather than about the kits. Our honest steer: the mitre-saw question is the one that matters, and most people answering it truthfully land on the Pro kit. If you are still unsure, run your dimensions through the [sim build planner](https://ifrothgolf.com/tools/sim-build-planner) first, since ceiling height rules out more builds than budget does, and read our [home simulator builds by budget](https://ifrothgolf.com/read/home-golf-simulator-builds-by-budget) breakdown to see where an enclosure sits against everything else you still have to buy.

## The takeaway

The DIY kit gives you the expensive part — the screen — and leaves you the framing. It is the right buy if your room is dark, your walls are square and you can genuinely build. Otherwise the Pro kit's included framing and lighting-matched screen earn the gap, and a lot of DIY builds close it anyway by buying timber twice. If you only want to hit balls indoors, a net beats both.

## FAQ

### Is the Carl's Place DIY enclosure kit actually cheaper once you have built it?

Often less than people expect. The kit price does not include timber, fixings or tools, and a sim frame has to stay square and rigid under repeated impact, so mis-cuts and second trips to the merchant are common. If you already own the tools and have built something similar, the saving is real. If not, budget for the frame costing meaningfully more than your first estimate.

### What does the Pro enclosure kit include that the DIY kit does not?

Two things. The framing is supplied rather than left to you, and the impact screen is specified against your room's lighting rather than defaulted. The second matters more than it sounds, because screen material and projector brightness have to be chosen as a pair.

### Do I need a dark room for a golf simulator enclosure?

Not strictly, but ambient light is the single biggest factor in how good the projected image looks. A dark, windowless garage is forgiving and makes screen selection low-risk. A bright room with windows you cannot cover needs a brighter projector, a screen chosen to suit it, or both.

### Should I buy a net instead of an enclosure?

If your goal is hitting balls at home rather than playing courses on screen, yes. A quality net with ball return costs a fraction of an enclosure and is better to use than a poorly built one. Buy the enclosure only when you specifically want the projected image.

## Products mentioned

- [Carl's Place DIY Enclosure Kit](https://ifrothgolf.com/product/carls-place-diy-enclosure) · $1,200 approx — Premium impact screen plus nylon surround, framing left to you — the enthusiast's shortcut, not the budget option.
  **Where to buy:** [Check price at PlayBetter](https://www.playbetter.com/products/carls-place-diy-golf-simulator-enclosure-kit-with-impact-screen?ghref=2301%3A1337342) (affiliate link)

- [Carl's Place Pro Enclosure Kit](https://ifrothgolf.com/product/carls-place-pro-enclosure) · $4,100 approx — The built-for-you version: framing included, and a screen choice matched to how bright your room is.
  **Where to buy:** [Check price at PlayBetter](https://www.playbetter.com/products/carls-place-pro-golf-simulator-enclosure-kit-with-impact-screen?ghref=2301%3A1337342) (affiliate link)

- [The Net Return Premium (Pro Series V2)](https://ifrothgolf.com/product/net-return-pro-v2) · $700 approx — The honest cheaper answer for a lot of people — a net that rolls the ball back beats a bad enclosure.
  **Where to buy:** [Check price at PlayBetter](https://www.playbetter.com/products/net-return-pro-series-v2-golf-hitting-net?ghref=2301%3A1337342) (affiliate link)

- [PlayBetter SimStudio 5x5 Hitting Mat](https://ifrothgolf.com/product/playbetter-simstudio-mat) · $600 approx — A 5x5 stance-and-strike mat, because standing off the surface you hit from undoes a good enclosure.
  **Where to buy:** [Check price at PlayBetter](https://www.playbetter.com/products/playbetter-simstudio-golf-hitting-mat?ghref=2301%3A1337342) (affiliate link)

- [BenQ TK710STi](https://ifrothgolf.com/product/benq-tk710sti) · $2,200 approx — 3,200-lumen 4K short-throw laser — the projector that makes the screen decision matter either way.
  **Where to buy:** [Check price at PlayBetter](https://www.playbetter.com/products/benq-tk710sti-golf-simulator-projector?ghref=2301%3A1337342) (affiliate link)

---

Source: [ifrothgolf](https://ifrothgolf.com) — independent golf-gear editorial.

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