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.
Carl's Place DIY Enclosure Kit review: the build is a conduit cut list, not carpentry, and the screen is where the money goes
The DIY in the name means buying 1-inch steel conduit and cutting it to a sheet Carl's Place sends you, or paying for the pre-cut pipe kit. The bigger decision is the screen, which moves the price more than the size does.
By Ben Marsden
The Net Return Pro Series V2 review: add its own screen and it costs what a DIY enclosure does
The 8-by-7.5-foot Pro is the size most garages should buy, it stands in three and a half feet of floor, and adding The Net Return's own simulator screen brings it level with a Carl's Place DIY kit. Which one you want depends on whether winter is for practising or for playing.
By Ben Marsden
ProTee VX review: overhead club data where the only yearly bill is the course software
A ceiling-mounted camera unit with a hitting zone more than three times the size of Uneekor's EYE XR and no membership to unlock its own data. Play courses on it and you still pay GSPro, but only GSPro.
By Ben Marsden
Uneekor EYE XO2 review: a 28-inch hitting zone built for a busy bay, with stickers on the clubface
Three overhead cameras and the biggest hitting zone Uneekor makes, which is exactly what a bay with several players needs. The fine print is a box of 400 clubface stickers, a gaming PC and a software tier for course play.
By Ben Marsden
Fiberbuilt Studio Grass review: buy the 7x4 single-hitting mat, because the both-hands layouts cost flagship money
Fiberbuilt's grass panel is the reason serious home bays end up on this mat, and the entry layout is the best way to buy it. The centre-hitting version is priced level with the Player Preferred, and it leaves out the panel your launch monitor sits on.
By Ben Marsden
SkyTrak ST MAX review: the sensible home-sim buy, and the discontinued SkyTrak+ that still undercuts it
The unit that sits exactly where most garage budgets land, and the only one in its bracket that runs course play without a gaming PC. The awkward part is that the model it replaced is still on shelves, cheaper, and tracking the ball the same way.
By Ben Marsden
TruGolf LaunchBox review: 27 courses you own, and no annual bill
A portable camera unit at the price where the running cost usually decides the argument. This one ships with E6 CONNECT Home and 27 courses you keep, which changes the maths in a way the spec sheet does not.
By Ben Marsden
Foresight Falcon review: the ceiling is the product, and the gaming PC is not in the box
Nothing sits beside the ball, nothing gets re-aimed, and a left-hander can step in without anyone moving anything. Then it asks for a ceiling you are allowed to drill into and a computer that is sold separately.
By Ben Marsden
SportScreen Vanish review: the sim enclosure that rolls into the ceiling and hands the garage back
A retractable screen, side baffles and all, that winches up into a ceiling housing and leaves the floor clear for a car. It is the first enclosure built for the reason most people never build a simulator — and it does not solve your ceiling height.
By Ben Marsden
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.
By Ben Marsden
TruGolf APOGEE review: the sim unit that gives you your floor back
TruGolf's overhead unit clears the hitting bay completely and replays your impact in slow motion after every shot. The catch is a ceiling you have to drill into and a software list with one name on it.
By Ben Marsden
Foresight made real accuracy a garage purchase. The software is now a membership.
Three cameras reading the ball directly, close enough to a GCQuad that most amateurs will never find the gap, and club data with no membership at all. The room it needs and the Foresight+ tier your build actually needs are what decide whether it fits.
By Ben Marsden
Trackman iO review: the launch monitor you buy once, and the four reasons most people shouldn't
The most expensive thing in our catalogue, and it earns the badge. But there are 4 honest reasons it isn't the right buy for most home sim rooms — and the rung below gets a lot of people most of the way.
By Marcus Bell
