Golf Simulator, or a Launch Monitor and Net? Which Should You Buy

Buy a full simulator if your room is at least 3.0 × 2.7 × 4.2 m and you want to play courses on a screen. Buy a launch monitor and net for numbers at lower cost or in a smaller space. Buy a garden cage if you practise outdoors. Each route grows into the next, so start with your space.

The three routes, in plain terms

People tend to ask me this as one question, but there are three different setups hiding inside it, and they suit different houses, budgets and goals.

Route 1: a garden cage, with or without a launch monitor. A freestanding 3 m × 3 m × 3 m steel cage with a net, a hitting mat and, if you want numbers, a portable launch monitor beside or behind the ball. You hit real balls at full speed outdoors and read the data on a phone or on the unit's screen. No screen, no projector, no PC.

Route 2: a launch monitor and a net indoors. The same idea inside a garage or spare room: a net to stop the ball, a mat, and a launch monitor sending numbers to a phone, tablet or laptop. You can run range sessions and, with the right unit, play courses on a laptop screen or TV, but you are not watching the ball fly onto a screen in front of you.

Route 3: a full golf simulator. An enclosure with an impact screen, a short-throw projector, a mat and base, and a launch monitor driving the software. You hit into the screen and the shot carries on across the course picture. Our Sim Buyer Docs page on how a golf simulator works explains the chain from launch monitor to software to projector if the parts are new to you.

The launch monitor is the common thread. It is the measuring device, it decides your accuracy and your software, and in two of the three routes it decides how much room you need. The rest is what you hit into and what you look at.

Space first: the numbers that rule each route

I find that the space decides this question more often than the budget does, so take these measurements before you fall in love with anything.

For a full simulator we plan on a room at least 3.0 m wide, 2.7 m to the ceiling and 4.2 m long, with 3 m or more of ceiling being ideal. Those figures allow 30 cm behind the screen, about 2.5 m from ball to screen, and room to swing a driver. They assume a camera launch monitor that sits beside the ball, such as the Garmin R50, Square Golf or Foresight GC3. A radar unit sits behind you, so the FlightScope Mevo Gen2 adds 2.4 m from its manual for a 5.2 m room, and the Full Swing KIT adds 3.05 m for 5.85 m.

A net indoors needs almost the…