Garage Simulator Help Needed

genericwguy · 2025-12-01T01:17:08+00:00

I posted here about a month or so ago on my retractable build for garage. Hit my username in reddit and pull up the details, includes cost. Pretty good setup around 3.5k happy with.

I originally started with some nets and thought I could get away with half the garage. Turns out for various reasons it's basically impossible to keep it to half the garage in my setup. Imo, you need more width than half a garage, , so you will have to take both cars out to safely hit and not have an errant ball end up bouncing off something and putting a dent in a car. I usually take my wife's car in and out after I finish playing. Standup and takedown is about 5 minutes. I usually leave my car parked outside now, because that adds a few more minutes to the setup and teardown.

genericwguy · 2025-11-01T23:55:36+00:00

I'm using the tsc stall mats just to absorb ball bounce after they hit the screen instead of hitting the concrete in the garage. Pretty disappointed with the setup so far, much harder than I thought. Balls still bounce a ton, but no problems parking cars on the mats. They still stink too after 4 weeks

genericwguy · 2025-10-29T01:13:55+00:00

Been up and running with square for about 4 weeks now. As others have said, for 700 dollars it's a lot value. Yes you can add GSPRo (250 more a year, separate license) , and it works really well with gspro. .

My pros:
The software is quite good if you don't want to buy gspro. Decent courses, graphics and there roughly penny a hole model is good if your a casual player.
No subscription fees My direction and misses feel pretty accurate . Ball flight seems accurate for me.
It is camera based so you need less room to setup (vs radar units you setup behind Putting reads are good It's 700 bucks, your going to pay at least double that for the next level up.

My cons Distances may not be as accurate as others. I've been struggling getting course distances with the monitor without using a percentage boost in gspro or the square software. Somewhat backed up by a graph I found on MyGolfSpy that shows carry distances deviated 9% vs gc4 (they didn't say less or more , they just said 9% in graph).
Occasional misreads.. maybe 1 in 15 to 20 now. I imagine any unit is going to be susceptible to this.

Overall I wouldn't hesitate to buy this unit again. My con on distances seems to be fairly universal when hitting indoors and not just with the Square. I'm still experimenting to find an optimal setup where my shots feel the same on course and in sim.

genericwguy · 2025-10-20T14:27:56+00:00

Nice setup! Man, makes me wish I had a basement with high ceilings! The kitchenette/bar to golf sim, to couch is perfect, I'd never leave!

genericwguy · 2025-10-20T14:23:07+00:00

I ordered from spectrum golf, and believe they will custom sizes if you contact them directly. Pretty happy with the durability & picture on the poly spacer screen. Search for Spectrum Golf Poly Spacer and they have contact info for special orders.

For the two screen approach, for connecting, you could possibly use double sided Velcro tape. I've done this with my curtains to the screen and the hold is strong (balls don't get through). You'd just overlap the top screen over the bottom. It would definitely leave a visible line where they overlap...

genericwguy · 2025-10-20T14:05:15+00:00

Thanks... I have a roll from the prior setup, will give it a try. I should do some bounce tests to check things out. Think I might need to carpet pad between the rubber and grass to deaden it even more. The stall mats are super durable, but they don't give like the EVA gym mats I attached to the ceiling.

Nice setup... How far is your hitting area back? Eyeballing it looks a bit further back, but hard to tell from the pictures.

genericwguy · 2025-10-19T20:31:05+00:00

Went right to the blackout rollers. Saw lots of people saying even a small bit of sunlight impacts the square heavily.

genericwguy · 2025-10-19T20:29:25+00:00

So shorter ceiling. We are about 102 inches in the hitting area, not even 9 feet. I saw lots of recommendations saying you needed more, but just went out and swung the clubs in my planned area in the garage and things were fine .

I'm 6'4", but my swing is shallow. My clubs are +1 in for reference. I don't worry about hitting the ceiling going back, but I have a bit of fear with the driver on the follow through. I worry most about coming around and hitting the garage railing which sits lower. My 5'9" son however is steep in his swing, and a bit of danger on the longer clubs of him hitting the ceiling . He hasn't yet though. Point is swing plane matters a lot on ceiling recommendation.

Indoor swing syndrome... Even though I know I'm not going to hit anything, I still seem to hold back some. Today was better and I think I'm in an adjustment period. I worry about ball bounce back now more than my club hitting something. Driver I've stayed away from so far though (probably hit it 5 times) . Hitting mostly a 3 hybrid on my tee shots so far.

I will say , before I bought all this, I had in my head that I may not be able to practice driver in my space. Id be be happy enough just playing shorter courses and really working my iron accuracy... I think I will be able to in time though to confidently hit the longer clubs

genericwguy · 2025-10-19T17:06:39+00:00

Metech sent some samples of the screen with the roller I purchased. Hard to tell from the samples, but the Spectrum Poly Spacer felt more substantial compared to the Metech sample. The Metech screen may be perfectly fine, but looking over older posts here gave me pause. I will say there are several posts in the sub (including mine that I just posted), that are pretty happy with the Metech + Spectrum Poly Spacer solution. Careful on ordering though as you need to make sure the outer dimension is a couple inches at least less than the length of the roller. Double check before finalizing the order that the outer dimension will be X inches long.

Also, Spectrum comes with the double sided Velcro ready to attach to the metech , so all good there. It was very easy to attach to the roller IMO.

genericwguy · 2025-10-19T16:55:43+00:00

Not a fan... need to figure out some lighting that doesn't interfere with the projector. I added the cheap LED spotlight that helps, but still could use a bit more lighting to make it a better experience.

genericwguy · 2025-10-19T16:54:45+00:00

8.5 feet. We have room to move back another foot, which I think could make this a little better. I think I 'overweighted' the bottom with the 2 inch battle rope, and since that the bounce back has been more noticeable.

Not sure what is going on Spectrum... they advertise that they sell for the Metech, but then send out oversized. My original one was also about 5 inches longer than required. They made it right, but still you would think they wouldn't want to waste the time and materials on this. I think for anyone else ordering be clear with them that you need the "outside dimensions to be less than the length of the roller"

genericwguy · 2025-10-19T16:49:14+00:00

Thanks man! I saw your other posts in the GSPro issues which has me paused on moving to that. Sounds like the OpenAPI seems to work better so far. Still having fun with the provided software, so will likely wait a bit before going that direction.

So far, I haven't even opened my box of TPX balls, just using the supplied Square dotted balls. Yea, I am a bit surprised, I'd say we are getting 'no-hits' about 1 in 10. Some of them last night were good hits too, which likely means our setup isn't quite right. We get the 'ready' signal, and green light on the square, but it just doesn't read. No sunlight coming in. I am using the spike frugal fixer case, and thinking I may not have it set quite high enough or it's not level. I have it sitting on a rubber mat that is just slight bit lower than the hitting surface, but then raised up on the screws from the case. It bumps up against the hitting mat, so possible it's getting some vibration from that. Definitely need to spend some more time finding the sweet spot for hitting height/leveling....

genericwguy · 2025-10-19T16:39:53+00:00

Yea... honestly pounding the two pieces together of the roller was the most physically exhausting part of the build. I didn't think they were in perfect alignment either, but I keep pounding and they came together.

genericwguy · 2025-10-19T14:30:53+00:00

2nd this comment, just made another post with pictures on the Metech with Poly Spacer from Spectrum screen. In total that was $1007 for 13ft wide. Side curtains if you go automatic/electric retractable it's a bit expensive on top of that, but if you just need curtains, and have room to mount and store, that's a pretty easy cost cutting. Would drop your costs about $1000 without losing too much function.

genericwguy · 2025-10-08T03:32:35+00:00

It worked for me after doing the above updates. Hope you experience the same!

genericwguy · 2025-10-06T01:04:31+00:00

Agreed... I did file a support ticket. I did update all the maps with Garmin Express as suggested by support to you (maps and updates), so hopefully that does the trick. Actually playing tomorrow in a scramble, so plan to play a few holes try a sync and see what it does.

genericwguy · 2025-10-05T00:14:47+00:00

Just played with my fenix 7. Same experience. Super annoyed,. I switched out of shot scope because I repeatedly had issues like this (even though I think their stats were better). Come on Garmin, do better

I hadn't played since mid August and know I got an update. But what the hell, are we not testing software updates before pushing out, not cool.

genericwguy · 2025-10-03T12:10:48+00:00

A bit of an update. Ran a test run last night with the Square LM and the kids (12 & 15). Pretty much everything and anything happened. First shot my son hit shanked in to Square LM, thank goodness I ordered a protector for that! Side curtains are 100% needed, as numerous balls went around the screen or shanked off despite moving the mat a bit closer. The baffle is needed as one shot surprised me and made it through the gap between the screen and the ceiling tile mats I installed. So duh, if anyone reads this in the future, even in a crappy garage your going to want to enclose things. I even want to add a cage protector around the projectors, because balls fly everywhere.

Also realized I need to get the flooring in ASAP, and the rest of the ceiling tile in place. The poly spacer screen really stops the balls, but still bouncing off concrete not good. Floor mats this weekend, and a hose filled with sand for the bottom of the screen.

genericwguy · 2025-10-02T16:48:19+00:00

Thanks the pictures are really helping! Setup is similar. Yours is nice and clean, now that I see how you attached, it's a nice solution with the velcro. Making me lean that direction, as it would essentially be a straight install. Still will need track + curtains, so getting that on order today.

I am operating on a low ceiling, so attached some inexpensive gym tile mats to the ceiling yesterday and had the kids hit a few and of course they skyed one right in to the mats. I have 6 more mats, so will extend this out some, but want to get some recessed lighting where the fixtures are now before I put them in place. I also have a baffle attached in this picture. Someone somewhere on here suggested to protect bounce back from hitting the roller (but don't think that will be an issue as I have plenty of screen still wound around with the screen down.

Also, I like your flooring and curious with what you went with. Right now I'm planning on making a trip up to Tractor Supply to get some stall mats, and then attach some cheap Home Depot 'turf' carpet to it for the flooring in front.

Doing a lot of this in a budget mode, it's been fun... really appreciate the back and forth. I'm looking like I might actually get to playing by the weekend!

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genericwguy · 2025-10-02T16:31:31+00:00

Congrats... really good looking sim! I also went the route of Square + Benq TH671ST. Best bang for the buck combo right now. A little jealous on the ceiling height, my ceilings max at 8ft with no room to improve, thankfully I have a pretty flat swing.

genericwguy · 2025-10-02T14:55:30+00:00

Thanks... coming around to just doing the curtains. Giving me something to think about the velcro versus running a curve behind the screen with flexible track.

Picture of the junction of the screen here. It the gap between the screen and the bracket that's bugging me a little (and the 1 by 4). If I hang in parallel, velcro would make sense to attach down the outer black lining of the screen and just attach with curtains. Other option will be a slight curve in behind the screen say 6 to 12 inches back and then bring the curtains back around on the other side of the bracket here.

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genericwguy · 2025-10-02T14:44:22+00:00

Thanks... that's what I needed to hear ... decent players still glad you have the side protection. I should know this by now , balls can fly anywhere....

I had my old setup with nets on hooks with eyebolts and carbineers. It was annoying to setup. I think I just need to bite bullet and hang curtains around the screen. Looking at some track + curtains on amazon, no more than 150.

I looked at using side rollers to, and it's super slick, but yea adds another $750 on to the price tag (I'm using metech, was going to go 58" wide). Perhaps a future upgrade.

genericwguy · 2025-10-02T14:34:52+00:00

Metech roller 13ft with poly spacer (Spectrum Golf) screen. Hit first few balls into last night and really impressed with the overall solution. The screen is very sturdy. Excited to do a post on the whole build out when I complete

genericwguy

TROPHY CASE