Simulators & Home Golf
Golf's fastest-growing venue is a garage, a spare room or a sim bay. Building a home setup, the off-course boom and what changes when screen golfers head for grass.
The sim room gets built in September: a made-to-order enclosure can take a calendar month
The room that gets used all winter is the one where the screen is hanging before the clocks change. The one ordered in December is a box in a hallway in February, and the reason is not money.
By Ben Marsden
The home simulator wins the five-year sum against a club membership. Most of the saving is rounds you didn't play
Every simulator comparison in this category is a simulator against another simulator. The thing it is actually competing with is the renewal letter on your kitchen table, and the honest arithmetic has a twist in it.
By Ben Marsden
70% of golfers used a simulator last year. 6% own one — and the reason isn't money
A survey of 391 golfers found the number one barrier to owning a home setup is space, not cost. I've been writing about this category the wrong way round, and so has everyone else.
By Marcus Bell
Your garage practice doesn't die in February because you lost motivation
It dies because of a small, stupid, entirely fixable thing: bending down. Twenty minutes of home practice contains about four minutes of golf and sixteen of picking balls up — and that ratio, not your willpower, is what kills the habit.
By Marcus Bell
Overhead or beside the ball? The home-sim decision nobody explains until you've already bought
Every premium launch monitor guide ranks units by accuracy. Almost none of them tell you that where the thing physically sits will change your sim room more than the spec sheet will — and that one of these choices is permanent.
By Marcus Bell
The smartest time to buy a golf simulator is the middle of summer
Nobody is thinking about indoor golf in July — which is exactly why the golfer who builds now plays all winter while everyone else is fighting over stock in November.
By Dan Mercer
You learned golf on a simulator. Here's where the grass disagrees
Roughly half the people swinging in sim bays have never played a hole outdoors. If you're about to change that, your numbers, your ball and your feet are in for some news.
By Jordan Hale
The mat is the one part of a home sim your body pays for — don't cheap out on it
Everyone agonises over the launch monitor and grabs the cheapest mat to save a few quid. It's backwards: the mat is the only component you physically feel on every single swing.
By Marcus Bell
