Golf stands as one of the most popular sports in the world, being a major sport in the United States, Scotland, and Japan in particular, but being an outdoor sport, going to a golf course can sometimes be difficult due to distances involved or inclement weather. This can interfere with a golfer’s practice schedule, and heavy rain or a long, costly drive to the golf course may mean missing out on practicing at the local course. But there is a solution to this: building a golf simulator for home use. Although not 100% like the real thing, the top golf simulators will recreate the sport to a generous degree, and this allows any golfer to practice the sport in the comfort and convenience of the home, and once an interested customer learns the different components that go together to create the best golf simulator, one can assemble all these parts from different retailers, set up the simulator in the home, and get ready to play. Who plays this sport the most often, and what goes into home golf simulators today?
The Sport
Golf was first developed in Scotland some 500 years ago, and it quickly gained popularity around the world. In the United States, just over 1,000 golf clubs had been set up by the year 1900, and there are many more now from coast to coast. In the year 2015, for a recent example, about 2.2 million people took up this sport, and it is also charitable work. Every year, golf generates some $3.9 billion in charity. A course for this sport will take up a fair amount of land; an 18-hole course will occupy anything from 125-150 acres of land, and it is important to use lawn mowers and other products to keep a course in good shape. But sometimes, going to the course every week for practice can be time-consuming or expensive, or bad weather such as rain or a snowy winter can interfere with practice. For this reason, any interested golfer can research golf simulator prices, figure out the right products for their budget and the room in their home, and assemble this simulator for indoor play.
Build the Simulator
Making a simulator for this sport will first mean choosing which actual room will hold it. Such a simulator will need enough room for a projector to create a large image on a wall, and the user will need enough space to swing with their clubs without hitting anything. A living room can be repurposed into a simulator if no one else in the house objects, and a clean basement could also serve this purpose. Whatever room is chosen, it should have solid walls and be comfortable to stay in.
A major component of this simulator is the actual software that simulates a course, and a PC or laptop that can run it. The software can be purchased online or at a sports goods store, and the computer to run it may already be in the user’s possession. And to project the simulator’s image onto a wall or canvas, the user will have to also acquire a projector that will be connected to the PC or laptop, and the projector can be mounted on the ceiling or on a table or shelf, and adjusted so that the image is projected onto the wall correctly. Setting up this simulator may also mean having the room for all cables and wires involved to prevent tripping or tangling hazards.
This simulator will need other physical components as well. Even if the course itself is a digital image, the user is swinging actual golf clubs and striking balls in the room, so this means setting up safety nets that are secured to the walls and ceiling so that the balls can be caught and recovered, and these nets also prevent the balls from hitting anything else that is in the room. What is more, a patch of false turf can be set up, and golf tees can be driven into it for the tee-off. Once all these components are together and in working order, a user can select various courses in the simulator and practice their swing for a variety of distances, weather, and terrain, all from the comfort of the home.
