Tips for Building Your Golf Sim in a Garden Room
Golf continues to grow as a popular sport and source of entertainment to millions of people around the world, and thanks to the power of golf simulators, you can continue playing golf year-round without having to worry about rain, snow, or extreme temperatures.
Golf simulators are virtual computerised games played indoors with settings that strive to recreate real world golf, allowing users to play and sharpen their skills and adhere to training during winter and rainy seasons. However, many don't have the space in their house to house a golf simulator. This is why golfers usually look at the option of building an outdoor garden room or shed to house their golf simulator setup.
How Much Space Do You Need?
When it comes to a golf sim setup in an outdoor garden room, space is key. In order to mee building regulations, an outbuilding is typically required to be a single story with maximum eaves height of 2.5 meters and maximum overall height of 4 meters with a dual pitched roof or three meters for any other roof. Basically, your garden room has to conform to the width, height, and depth requirements that any other room needs if you wish to use it for a golf simulator. It's helpful to swing your longest club in the area where you will be hitting. Test out the space by taking a few swings with your golf clubs. Usually, your garden room will need to be at least 2.5m high x 3m wide x 4.2m deep to house the equipment necessary, including impact screens, launch monitors, projectors, the PC running the simulator software, curtains, turf, and more.
How to Make Best Use of Garden Room Space
The space in a garden room is usually limited compared to a large living room. Camera-based launch monitors, such as SkyTrak, ForeSight, and Uneekor can often be used in smaller spaces, compared to radar-based launch monitors. This is because they only need to view the ball’s starting position and forward of that and take a series of super high-speed photos of your ball at impact and then use them to simulate your shot.
For the projector that brings the experience to life on screen, usually you will need a short throw projector with throw ratios ranging from 0.5 to 1.1 to help you put the projector where it is needed to fill the screen while being mounted safely outside the hitting area (and without casting a shadow).
Also, many garden rooms are constructed with pitched roofs and vaulted ceilings. If there is a vaulted ceiling with beams running across the room, when considering the size of your impact screen and your projector position, measurements should be taken from the floor to the beam. For example as shown below, though the center (maximal) height of the vaulted ceiling is 3.3m, the correct height for a simulator should be at the edges of the roof, or about 2.5m.
An additional consideration for a golf simulator environment should be any pipework, pillars, or protrusions that could make it difficult to set up the simulator in that area. While there may seemingly be enough height in the room from floor to ceiling, a pipe or ducting may result in the simulator ceiling not being high enough or needing to be constructed in a different way. For all of these situations above, you may very possibly need a projector with wide installation flexibility, that can be mounted off-center, such as lens shift or keystone.
More Tips for a Golf Sim Build
When setting up a golf sim in your garden room, there are a few more things you’ll need to keep in mind, so here are some tips to help give you a better golfing experience.
• Lighting:
It is important to keep light off the screen while you are illuminating the playing area. Advances in LED and other lighting technologies make this easier and more affordable than in the past. These lights can help you put light where you want it for a bright playing area, while keeping your projected image looking spectacular. Make sure you get a model that dims and has an adjustable lighting angle, so you can not only control where the light goes but how bright you want it.
• Noise reduction:
Every shot causes noise, depending on your impact screen setup and how close your hitting area is from the screen. One of the most effective ways of soundproofing your simulator room may be to stop the sound waves before they ever reach the walls. Installing golf simulator side panels and enclosures does just that. An enclosure will not only keep sound emissions down but also help prevent damage from any biffed shots or ricocheted balls.
• Heating:
Given the cold winters, a golf simulator shed needs the same attention to heating and insulation as an internal room would. There are elements to consider in order to keep your golf simulator space nice and warm: insulating your shed, reducing gaps and drafts, and active warming. such as electric heaters. Bear in mind that adding insulation to the wall of a small shed can actually add width to the walls and reduce the width in which you can swing slightly. This is something to think about if you only have a small space to work width when using or designing your shed.
We hope this has given you a helpful insight into what to consider when thinking about setting up your golf simulator in a garage. It’s quite different from putting a setup inside your home, so do proceed with care!
Talk to a Golf Simulator Projector Expert
BenQ has trained staff to help you find the perfect golf simulator projector – within your room size and budget. To help you make the best decision, you can reach out to one of our experts to set up anything from a chat to a complete online demo, to help you find the right projector for your needs.
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