70% of golfers used a simulator last year. 6% own one — and the reason isn't money

The Buffalo Groupe marketplace study run in May this year contains one finding that should reorganise how this entire category is covered. Over 70% of golfers used a simulator in the past year. Only 6% own one. And the primary barrier separating those two numbers is not cost. It's space.

I've written a lot of words about what to buy. Price ladders, subscription maths, overhead versus floor units, projector lumens. Almost all of it answers a question that, for the overwhelming majority of the 64% caught in that gap, is the second question.

The gap is enormous and nobody is serving it

Sit with those numbers. Seven in ten golfers have hit balls into a screen and enjoyed it enough to do it again. Barely one in twenty has one at home. That is one of the widest want-to-own gaps in any consumer category I can think of, and it exists in a segment where the products are excellent and getting cheaper every year.

The industry's answer to that gap has been to keep making the entry price lower. Camera-based tracking under a thousand pounds was a genuine breakthrough — the Square Golf unit does things that cost five figures a decade ago. But if the barrier was never primarily money, then every one of those price drops has been solving the wrong problem with impressive engineering.

Why space is a harder problem than money

Money is a single number you can save up for. Space is four constraints that all have to be true at once, and most people fail at least one:

Ceiling height. The binding constraint, and the one nobody measures before getting excited. A driver swing needs meaningfully more headroom than people assume, and a standard room is marginal for a tall player.

Depth. You need distance behind the ball for the swing and in front for the ball to travel far enough to be tracked, and radar units need considerably more of the latter than camera units.

Width. Enough for a full swing plus safety margin, and if anyone else uses the room, enough that a shanked wedge doesn't find the wall.

Permanence. This is the real killer and it barely gets discussed. Most houses do not have a spare room that can become a golf bay forever. A setup that has to be assembled and put away gets used twice.

What this changes about what to buy

If space rather than budget is your constraint, the buying logic inverts. The most expensive setup is not the best one; the one that fits the room you actually have is.

Stop specifying the launch monitor first. Measure the room first, then buy the unit that works in it. A radar unit that needs eight feet of ball flight is simply the wrong product in a garage, regardless of how well it's reviewed or how much it costs. This ordering error is the single most common way people waste money in this category, and I've watched it happen repeatedly.

Take the permanence problem seriously. An all-in-one like the Approach R50 — cameras, screen and simulation in one unit, no laptop, no projector, nothing to wire — is not the best measuring device at its price. Foresight and Uneekor units will out-measure it on club data. What it is, is a device that survives contact with a room you can't dedicate, because setup friction is what actually kills home practice. Something you use twice a week beats something better that you assemble monthly.

Consider that a net is a legitimate destination, not a stepping stone. A KIT and a net in a garage gets you real data and real practice in a fraction of the space a screen bay needs. The industry frames nets as what you buy before you can afford a screen. For a lot of people they're the correct final answer.

**Buy the screen last, if at all.** It's the component that forces every other constraint. Deciding you want one and then discovering the room can't hold it is the standard path to an expensive cupboard.

The tool we already built for this

We built the [Sim Room Architect](/tools/sim-build-planner) to start from your room dimensions rather than your budget — it takes the space you have and works out what will genuinely fit before it costs anything. At the time, that felt like a reasonable design choice. This survey suggests it was addressing the actual constraint the whole time, and that we've since spent a lot of words on the constraint that isn't binding.

The one number worth working out first

If you take a single action from this, make it this one: work out your usable ceiling height, which is not the same as your ceiling height. Stand where the ball would sit, take a normal driver swing, and have someone watch the clubhead at the top rather than measuring the room with a tape. Most rooms lose several inches to a light fitting, a beam, a garage door mechanism or a sloping section you'd forgotten about, and the clubhead finds all of them.

Then do it in socks, because you'll be wearing golf shoes, and on the mat you intend to use, because a thick mat raises you and lowers your clearance at the same time. A surprising number of abandoned home setups failed on an inch that a tape measure said was there.

What I'd tell someone in the 64%

Go and measure your room before you read another review, including ours. Ceiling height, then depth, then width, then ask honestly whether the space can stay a golf space. Four numbers and one honest answer.

If it fits, the market is in great shape and you have genuinely good options at every price. If it doesn't, no amount of budget fixes it — and the useful move is a net, a portable unit and lowered expectations, rather than a five-figure plan you'll abandon. The most expensive simulator is the one that doesn't fit the room, and the industry has spent five years telling you the opposite.