--- title: "Exputt RG review: the putting simulator whose 44-inch mat decides what it can teach" url: "https://ifrothgolf.com/read/exputt-rg-review" type: "spotlight" topic: "simulators" author: "Ben Marsden" published: "2026-09-04T18:00" publisher: "ifrothgolf" --- # Exputt RG review: the putting simulator whose 44-inch mat decides what it can teach > A putting-only simulator that nobody in the gear press takes seriously, aimed at the part of the game that quietly falls apart between October and April. What it measures, what it only pretends to, and the mat dimension that explains both. ## In short - **Verdict: 7.5/10.** The third thing I would buy for an indoor room, not the first — and the only one of the three that addresses the skill a winter indoors actually takes off you. If your sim room already has the full swing covered and you three-putt from distance, this is the obvious gap-filler. If you do not have a room yet, buy a mat. - Pro: Reads your actual stroke — ball speed, direction, putter path and face angle — rather than making you guess from where the ball stopped - Pro: Rolls the putt out on a modelled green with contour, which is the only way to practise green reading and downhill pace indoors in February - Con: The supplied mat is 44 inches long, so the device measures roughly the first metre and simulates everything after it — you never feel a long putt actually roll The pattern is the same every spring. February in the garage, sixty balls into a net, driver numbers on a screen, and by March the full swing is in better shape than it was in September. Then the first real round on real greens, and a 25-footer is left eight feet short, and the one after it goes four past. Two three-putts in the first six holes and a scorecard that has nothing to do with how the ball was struck. The full swing survives a winter indoors. Pace does not. Everything about an indoor set-up is built around a ball that travels 200 yards on a screen and about three feet in the room, and the single skill that is nothing but calibration — how hard, on this surface, for that distance — has nothing left to calibrate against. Every home simulator budget I have seen goes to the launch monitor, then the mat, then the projector, and the part of the game that decays fastest gets a strip of carpet in the hallway. The [Exputt RG](https://ifrothgolf.com/product/exputt-rg) is the odd little machine that exists specifically for that gap, and almost nobody in the gear press writes about it, because it is not a launch monitor and cannot be reviewed as one. ## What it actually is A sensor unit on a small tripod that watches the ball and the putter head, with a sticker supplied to go on your putter so the camera has something to track. It reads ball speed and direction off the strike along with putter path and face angle, and hands that data to software that rolls the putt out on a modelled green with real contour, out through an HDMI cable to any TV. There is 2.4GHz Wi-Fi in it for updates and online play with up to four people, and the box arrives with the camera, tripod, connecting rod, a TV holder, a remote, the mat and the putter sticker. What it is not, said plainly, because the category confusion is the main reason people are disappointed: it is not a launch monitor, it does not read a full swing, it will not tell you a single thing about any club other than the putter, and it does not belong on a list with a Garmin or a SkyTrak. It sits in your living room and does one job. ## The dimension that explains everything it can and cannot teach The supplied mat is 13.4 inches wide and 44.1 inches long including the ball stopper. Under four feet, end to end. That number is the most useful fact about this machine and I have not seen it discussed anywhere. It means the Exputt measures roughly the first metre of the putt and simulates every inch after that. You strike the ball, it runs a yard, it stops, and the roll-out happens on the screen. Which is exactly right for what the device is honestly training — start line, face angle at impact, and the speed you actually delivered — and exactly wrong if what you pictured was watching a thirty-footer trundle across the carpet. The upside of that trade is real and it is why the thing exists: you can practise pace on a forty-foot downhill left-to-righter in a room that is four feet long. No mat on earth does that. The downside is that the feedback loop runs through your eyes and not your hands. You learn what a given strike produces; you do not get the sensation of the ball travelling, which is a genuine part of how good putters calibrate. Anyone telling you this replaces time on a practice green is selling something. ## The mounting is fussier than the pictures suggest Worth measuring your room before you order. The camera needs to sit between 2.3 and 5.6 feet off the floor and between 2 and 5.9 feet back from the mat, and the two figures interact — the higher it goes, the further back it wants to be. That is a workable window in a room with a sideboard or a low unit under the telly. It is a much tighter one if your TV is wall-mounted at head height with a sofa parked in the only sightline, which describes a lot of living rooms. The supplied tripod and TV holder cover the common cases, but this is not a device you drop on a coffee table and switch on. ## Where it sits against the cheap options, which is the honest comparison Not against a launch monitor. Against a mat and a mirror, because that is where the same money goes. The [WellPutt 3m mat](https://ifrothgolf.com/product/wellputt-3m-putting-mat) is around $110 and gives you ten feet of surface rolling at roughly 10 to 11.5 on the stimp, which is genuine medium-to-fast green pace rather than the dead drag of a cheap mat, plus markers for eye position, alignment, start line and stroke length and an app with fifty-odd drills. There is no hole, which people either hate or eventually understand. For most golfers this is the better first purchase and it is a fifth of the price. If the problem is mechanical rather than a pace problem — if you are set up with your eyes inside the ball and your shoulders open and no amount of feel work is going to fix that — the answer is cheaper again. The [PuttOut mirror](https://ifrothgolf.com/product/puttout-mirror-trainer) at around $60 shows you where your eyes, shoulders and face actually are, comes with magnetic guides and an adjustable gate, and folds into a bag. Diagnose the stroke with something like that before you spend on a device that assumes your stroke is broadly fine. The Exputt is the third purchase in that sequence, not the first, and it earns its place by doing the one thing neither of the others can: contour. A putt you pushed on a left-to-right slope misses the way it would outdoors, and you can practise reading break at ten at night in November. That is a real capability and it is why the thing is worth $475 to a particular person. ## The limits worth stating before you spend Modelled break is modelled. There is no grain, no wind, no dew, no wet green that has gone slow after rain, no bumpy afternoon surface with the day's footprints in it. Green reading on a screen trains you to read a rendering, and a rendering is cleaner and more legible than the real thing will ever be. What transfers well is the pace-to-slope relationship — how much a given amount of break steals from your speed — and that transfers better than I expected it to when I first looked at what the device is measuring. The other honest note is that the market has decided this is a niche product and priced it accordingly. Around $475 is not cheap for something that only does putting, and it sits in the awkward zone where a golfer could instead buy a mat and put the rest toward the launch monitor they actually want. ## Who should buy it You already have an indoor set-up and the full-swing side is sorted. Your handicap is being eaten from distance rather than from three feet. You play somewhere the greens change speed meaningfully through the season, so pace is a thing you have to re-learn every spring rather than something that stays put. And you will genuinely use something that lives in the room you are already sitting in, because the reason winter practice dies is logistics and not motivation — the sessions that require driving somewhere happen twice. That is the buyer. For that buyer this is the cheapest meaningful upgrade available to a sim room, because everything else on the shopping list improves a part of the game that was not the problem. ## Who should skip it Anyone buying their first piece of indoor kit. Buy the mat, spend the difference on nothing, and see whether you use it. Anyone whose putting misses are mechanical — wrong answer, cheaper answer exists. Anyone who plays through the winter on real greens, because you already have the thing this simulates and yours has grain in it. And anyone who read the word simulator and pictured a full swing, which this does not do and will never do. For the broader case on what an autumn indoors should actually be spent on, [the six weeks that change your handicap](https://ifrothgolf.com/read/off-season-work-starts-in-september) sets out the order I would buy in, and [how to practise putting at home](https://ifrothgolf.com/read/how-to-practise-putting-at-home) covers making any of it transfer to a real green. The verdict I would give it is narrow and firm. As a launch monitor it does not exist. As the only device under four figures that puts contour and pace into a living room in February, it is the one I would buy — third, after the surface and the mirror, and only once the full swing has somewhere to live. ## Verdict: 7.5/10 **Bottom line:** The third thing I would buy for an indoor room, not the first — and the only one of the three that addresses the skill a winter indoors actually takes off you. If your sim room already has the full swing covered and you three-putt from distance, this is the obvious gap-filler. If you do not have a room yet, buy a mat. **Pros** - Reads your actual stroke — ball speed, direction, putter path and face angle — rather than making you guess from where the ball stopped - Rolls the putt out on a modelled green with contour, which is the only way to practise green reading and downhill pace indoors in February - Runs off a TV over HDMI in a normal living room, with no bay, no net and no gaming PC in the background **Cons** - The supplied mat is 44 inches long, so the device measures roughly the first metre and simulates everything after it — you never feel a long putt actually roll - The camera has to sit 2.3 to 5.6 feet off the floor and 2 to 5.9 feet from the mat, which is a narrower window than a living room always allows - Modelled break is modelled: no grain, no wind, no afternoon footprints, and green reading on a screen is reading a rendering ## The takeaway The Exputt RG EX500D is a putting-only simulator, not a launch monitor: an infrared sensor reads ball speed and direction plus putter path and face angle, then rolls the putt out on a modelled green with contour through a TV over HDMI. The supplied mat is 44 inches long, so it measures the first metre and simulates the rest — which is why it can teach pace and green reading in a small room and why you never feel a long putt roll. At around $475 it is the third indoor purchase, behind a proper mat like the WellPutt 3m at $110 and a mirror at $60. Buy it if your sim room already covers the full swing and you three-putt from distance; skip it if it would be your first piece of indoor kit. ## FAQ ### Is the Exputt RG a launch monitor? No. It only works with a putter. It reads ball speed and direction off the strike along with putter path and face angle, and it will not give you a single number about a full swing or any other club. It is designed to sit alongside a full-swing set-up, not to replace one. ### How much space does the Exputt RG need? Less than a full-swing bay but with a specific mounting window. The camera has to sit between 2.3 and 5.6 feet off the floor and between 2 and 5.9 feet back from the mat, and the supplied mat itself is 13.4 by 44.1 inches. A living room works, but measure the height and distance to your TV before ordering. ### Does the Exputt RG actually help your putting on a real green? The parts that transfer are start line, face angle at impact and the pace-to-slope relationship, because those are what the sensor genuinely measures. What does not transfer is the feel of a long putt rolling out, since the ball travels about a metre before the software takes over, and green reading on a modelled surface has no grain, dew or footprints in it. ### Is the Exputt RG worth it compared with a putting mat? Only as a later purchase. A structured mat like the WellPutt 3m costs roughly a fifth as much, gives you ten feet of surface rolling at 10 to 11.5 on the stimp and trains stroke and start line on a real roll. The Exputt buys you one thing a mat cannot: modelled contour, so you can practise break and downhill pace indoors at night. ## Products mentioned - [Exputt RG EX500D](https://ifrothgolf.com/product/exputt-rg) · $475 approx — A putting-only simulator that reads the strike and rolls the putt out on a modelled green with contour. **Where to buy:** [Check price at PlayBetter](https://www.playbetter.com/products/exputt-rg-real-time-golf-putting-simulator?ghref=2301%3A1337342) (affiliate link) - [WellPutt 3m Putting Mat (10ft First)](https://ifrothgolf.com/product/wellputt-3m-putting-mat) · $110 approx — Ten feet of real rolling surface, and the better first purchase for most people at a fifth of the price. **Where to buy:** [Check price at Amazon](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0789WHQY8?tag=ifrothgolf-20&ascsubtag=md_wellputt-3m-putting-mat) (affiliate link) · also stocked by WellPutt - [PuttOut Putting Mirror Trainer](https://ifrothgolf.com/product/puttout-mirror-trainer) · $60 approx — The cheap answer if the problem is setup and stroke mechanics rather than pace and reading. **Where to buy:** [Check price at Amazon](https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0D6QLB7SM?tag=ifrothgolf-20&ascsubtag=md_puttout-mirror-trainer) (affiliate link) · also stocked by PuttOut --- Source: [ifrothgolf](https://ifrothgolf.com) — independent golf-gear editorial. 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