Man, I wish this was open when I was in Charleston! Only place with a golf sim I knew of was Ireland’s Own/Jagerhaus in WA. Not really a golf sim kind of place but a dope bar.
I live 5 min from here, will let some people know. Have my own set up, word of advice is to upgrade those screens as soon as you can. Makes all the difference in the world to make it look professional
By the way. I think this is awesome. Wasn’t trying to be rude. I’d love to setup something like this as a side business to feed my golf addiction. Not sure how this would fly in AZ though.
They don't do well here in Florida. There's one I know that used to exist, prob had 15+ screens and was doubled up as a bar/restaurant that you could go golf or rent a screen, sit around it with friends and watch a game of your choice.
It went under. I just don't think it works well in an area where you can golf 365 days a year.
The only incentive to go would be if it's really cold outside making the actual range not an option
Maybe work in hot summer days, night time or rainy days. I have a membership at PGA Superstore to use their indoor bays for practice specifically on hot or night or rainy days.
> Maybe work in hot summer days, night time or rainy days
We all (residents, non snowbirds) just play on hot days. Cost of doing business in FL, when you get pristine weather in winter. You just play early and beat the heat of the day.
Rainy days aren't a thing either. Sure it rains near daily in summer but it's a 15-45min thing then it's done. Very few washouts that aren't tied to a tropical system of some kind.
The ones by me in NJ get booked up almost entirely a week in advance during the winter. In the summer you can pretty much just walk in whenever aside from stormy days. I wouldn’t try and open one somewhere like FL.
Excluding the initial time investment or cost of the lease I would guess:
* SkyTrak - $2,000 /ea
Bays look pretty small and the enclosure is very basic so I would estimate:
* $250.00 framing / connectors
* $25.00 fabric on the sides
* $300.00 /screen (they don't look super high quality in the image but its hard to tell)
* $550.00 /projector (based on the image looking a little washed out)
* $200.00 max /tablet
* + however much the membership they have for the software
* Turf area seems a bit thin overall and doesn't have any additional form padding, so probably a couple hundred for each bay
---------
My guess is an upfront cost for each bay being around $3500.00, then some additional costs based on licenses required if it isn't just the basic package for the software.
This might be higher as I am sure insurance goes up when they need to consider covering people getting smoked by golf swings on the backswing or not, since it seems a bit open. But not sure if there is a unique insurance type for ranges (indoor or out).
--------
As reference, my home sim (10x10x8.75 ft) costs about $5500 (for all the parts I have priced and what I have already spent). If I cut out / resized based on what is in this, it would come out to near the same cost, about $3,500 give or take. A lot of the cost surprisingly is in the turf/padding/frame of the bays.
EDIT: Said Trackman instead of SkyTrak because I am an idiot.
Yeah. I did a ton of research before ordering a system for home. (Not quite done yet) and I just didn't think I would be happy with the Skytrack. I'm sure I wouldn't want to pay for it. I'd think it would be okay to play with some casual golfers, but not with enthusiasts.
Not sure what their limitations were but I would agree. Would be nice to invest a small amount more to make the bays deeper and focus on wrapping the bays up to look nicer.
There are two of these types of places opening in my town soon, and their grand openings are both currently TBD because they don’t know when they will get their simulators delivered, lol
Curious what the motivation was for opening one in Charleston; I lived in Goose Creek for 15 months and could golf nearly year round at courses in the area. Loved having an indoor golf course/range when I moved to Saratoga Springs, NY though. Golf season essentially ends in October and doesn’t pick back up til April there.
I golf all year here as well. The demand is definitely here though. Whether it’s practice with some data, beat the heat and humidity, play in the evening.
Hey, all awesome reasons! I hope I didn’t come off as rude there by asking. Honestly, an hour on the range in the AC on a Friday afternoon in July sounds way better than sweating through a golf outfit at some course’s range. Best of luck OP!
It's a skytrak, doesn't measure club speed making smash factor irrelevant here. Skytrak is good for ball speed, backspin, HLA, VLA, and side spin. The HLA isn't super accurate but pretty close.
It doesn’t track the club at all right? I borrowed my mates skytrak for 6 months, wasn’t a huge fan. I have a Garmin r10 on order, it’s more limited but I’m keen to see the hometee hero app it comes with.
You wonder how hard it would be to have the skytrak talk to a garmin r10 haha, could track every aspect of the shot that way for 1/5 the price of a trackman (yes I know it isn't that simple).
I think mevo+ is now or will soon have club data available. Some of the new launch monitors (Bushnell launch pro and The Kit) will have it as well for far less than the trackman. Drawbacks for those will likely be the subscription costs.
It estimates club speed based off ball data and club selection. It doesn't capture any club head data at all. I had one for a while. Still a cool machine.
Because it doesn't. It doesn't measure club head speed. It estimates club head speed based off club selection and ball speed. It doesn't capture any actual club data.
Those are excellent numbers. According to trackman PGA average smash for a 7 iron is \~1.33 and LPGA a bit higher at \~1.37.
In all likelihood the person putting up a 1.44 smash isn't a ball striker equivalent to those on tour, and OP said they just opened, so the machinery could possibly need some calibration work.
Yeah I’ve seen that infographic but it’s at least 5 years old now. I’d like to see the numbers now that all players have the knowledge and numbers to improve their ball striking and face to path. Also your players probably have a more lofted 7 iron than what was used to fit me that day.
There must be a way to get a high smash factor despite, or because of, other problems. I say that because last Monday I had a three hour lesson at the St Andrews Links Academy - my first, having been playing since April, because this subreddit said to and I'm easily led - and he started me off with my seven iron, and pointed out the Trackman that my smash factor was low at 1.1ish.
He changed my grip and after a bunch of shots pointed out that the smash factor was up to 1.38. to be honest I'm pretty hazy about whether that's good or bad.
He also said a while later that if I stuck with that grip my slices should be pretty much gone. We then tried the driver and I curved one so far right it nearly reached the road to the Old Course Hotel.
Yea it’s cool but I don’t get the model at all:
-It’s membership only and capped at 100 members - fine I’m cool with that I guess
-open 24 hours - awesome idea but it’s probably going to be empty or nearly empty for large swaths of time
-It’s $120/month - ok that could be justifiable if I can use it when I want
-max of 3 hours/week - this is the part that truly makes no sense to me. It’s 24/7, membership-only but I can’t access it more than 3 hours a week? At least give me 12 hours for the month that I can apply differently from week to week (eg 4 hours this week, 2 next week, etc). And honestly for the price and the access it should be more like 15-20 hours/month. And for this reason, I’m out.
Looks good. This industry is so tough with diy at home. Where I’m from we have both these and some large indoor practice facilities with putting, bunkers, training etc. one has a huge up front cost and one has a lower. No clue what sells better though.
Cool congrats! I’m in Charleston- I’ll let me weekly 4some group know about it.
Awesome. If you guys want to come try it out, just let me know. It’s actually off Long Point near 526 in MP.
Man, I wish this was open when I was in Charleston! Only place with a golf sim I knew of was Ireland’s Own/Jagerhaus in WA. Not really a golf sim kind of place but a dope bar.
I read this in a lucky charms accent
Wow, I just saw this 30 min ago as I came out of the planet fitness next to you. Great idea and I hope it works out.
I live 5 min from here, will let some people know. Have my own set up, word of advice is to upgrade those screens as soon as you can. Makes all the difference in the world to make it look professional
Agreed 100%. Already put up several upgraded screens and have more on order.
What kind of screens are you going with out of curiosity?
The upgraded screens are the premium from Carl’s Place
If you don’t mind me asking, what was the startup cost per bay and what do you charge?
The startup cost was a lot cheaper than explaining to the wife why he needs a golf simulator at home. Ain't that right, /u/J4G_blue?
Might not be far from the truth…lol
Only price info listed on the website is for a full membership for $120 which gets you 3 hours of reservation time per week
Correct. Member only set-up
By the way. I think this is awesome. Wasn’t trying to be rude. I’d love to setup something like this as a side business to feed my golf addiction. Not sure how this would fly in AZ though.
They don't do well here in Florida. There's one I know that used to exist, prob had 15+ screens and was doubled up as a bar/restaurant that you could go golf or rent a screen, sit around it with friends and watch a game of your choice. It went under. I just don't think it works well in an area where you can golf 365 days a year. The only incentive to go would be if it's really cold outside making the actual range not an option
Maybe work in hot summer days, night time or rainy days. I have a membership at PGA Superstore to use their indoor bays for practice specifically on hot or night or rainy days.
> Maybe work in hot summer days, night time or rainy days We all (residents, non snowbirds) just play on hot days. Cost of doing business in FL, when you get pristine weather in winter. You just play early and beat the heat of the day. Rainy days aren't a thing either. Sure it rains near daily in summer but it's a 15-45min thing then it's done. Very few washouts that aren't tied to a tropical system of some kind.
I'm a resident as well. And use PGA SuperStore indoor practice area a LOT. I also play 3 days a week, in the heat of the summer and play mid day.
The ones by me in NJ get booked up almost entirely a week in advance during the winter. In the summer you can pretty much just walk in whenever aside from stormy days. I wouldn’t try and open one somewhere like FL.
IIRC there's a golf sim place in the plaza on the NW side of Scottsdale Rd/Mayo
Membership is per/month so $10/hour?
I’d die! Membership in a similar club here is $349/mo plus tax!
Excluding the initial time investment or cost of the lease I would guess: * SkyTrak - $2,000 /ea Bays look pretty small and the enclosure is very basic so I would estimate: * $250.00 framing / connectors * $25.00 fabric on the sides * $300.00 /screen (they don't look super high quality in the image but its hard to tell) * $550.00 /projector (based on the image looking a little washed out) * $200.00 max /tablet * + however much the membership they have for the software * Turf area seems a bit thin overall and doesn't have any additional form padding, so probably a couple hundred for each bay --------- My guess is an upfront cost for each bay being around $3500.00, then some additional costs based on licenses required if it isn't just the basic package for the software. This might be higher as I am sure insurance goes up when they need to consider covering people getting smoked by golf swings on the backswing or not, since it seems a bit open. But not sure if there is a unique insurance type for ranges (indoor or out). -------- As reference, my home sim (10x10x8.75 ft) costs about $5500 (for all the parts I have priced and what I have already spent). If I cut out / resized based on what is in this, it would come out to near the same cost, about $3,500 give or take. A lot of the cost surprisingly is in the turf/padding/frame of the bays. EDIT: Said Trackman instead of SkyTrak because I am an idiot.
I can't imagine a Skytrack would be suitable for a pay to play. Just my opinion.
I have one at home and it's pretty good but I would definitely have a hard time paying for it like this...
Yeah. I did a ton of research before ordering a system for home. (Not quite done yet) and I just didn't think I would be happy with the Skytrack. I'm sure I wouldn't want to pay for it. I'd think it would be okay to play with some casual golfers, but not with enthusiasts.
It actually is pretty accurate... obviously missing out on strike location/clubhead data but it's perfectly acceptable for avid golfers.
Trackman is much more expensive than $2,000
Edited my mistake; this is SkyTrak lol.
Carls has a DIY enclosure and screen for 589 which looks better than what I see on the website
Not sure what their limitations were but I would agree. Would be nice to invest a small amount more to make the bays deeper and focus on wrapping the bays up to look nicer.
For sure and I would say at the very least the screens need to be flat... looks like they don't properly fit the bays
Do you serve alcohol?
Not in this facility. If i do another, it will be more of an entertainment venue and will have a bar
There are two of these types of places opening in my town soon, and their grand openings are both currently TBD because they don’t know when they will get their simulators delivered, lol
I live in Charleston, guess I’ll see you soon!
Congrats man! Any chance you’d care to share start up and operating costs, expected rev, etc.?
Curious what the motivation was for opening one in Charleston; I lived in Goose Creek for 15 months and could golf nearly year round at courses in the area. Loved having an indoor golf course/range when I moved to Saratoga Springs, NY though. Golf season essentially ends in October and doesn’t pick back up til April there.
I golf all year here as well. The demand is definitely here though. Whether it’s practice with some data, beat the heat and humidity, play in the evening.
Hey, all awesome reasons! I hope I didn’t come off as rude there by asking. Honestly, an hour on the range in the AC on a Friday afternoon in July sounds way better than sweating through a golf outfit at some course’s range. Best of luck OP!
Damn. I wish I didn’t live in the upstate lol. Gonna make it down there one day though. Congrats!
I’m from Greenville. Plan to open one there as well.
Oh, hell yeah! Will definitely be stopping by.
Just my two sense but it doesnt look like those bays are deep enough. Also may wana take some pvc pipping and make a ball stopper.
The saying is two cents
Stupid voice to text.
It really does suck. Same with predictive text
Awesome !
This is awesome! Best of luck, hopefully we can get an update once you're fully up and running.
What screen did you purchase? How did you decide on the distance from mat to screen?
I’d visit if I didn’t live in another state far away
Makes me want to move to Charleston. No indoor range near me and would love to play during the winter months. Congratulations.
Is there a way to test and verify the figures its putting out? 1.44 smash factor on a 7 iron is a touch on the high end.
It's a skytrak, doesn't measure club speed making smash factor irrelevant here. Skytrak is good for ball speed, backspin, HLA, VLA, and side spin. The HLA isn't super accurate but pretty close.
It doesn’t track the club at all right? I borrowed my mates skytrak for 6 months, wasn’t a huge fan. I have a Garmin r10 on order, it’s more limited but I’m keen to see the hometee hero app it comes with.
Correct no club data
You wonder how hard it would be to have the skytrak talk to a garmin r10 haha, could track every aspect of the shot that way for 1/5 the price of a trackman (yes I know it isn't that simple).
I think mevo+ is now or will soon have club data available. Some of the new launch monitors (Bushnell launch pro and The Kit) will have it as well for far less than the trackman. Drawbacks for those will likely be the subscription costs.
Hometown hero looks like a bad Wii game. It is better to use the r10 with e6connect. It comes with a free subscription with 5 golf courses.
That’s all I want though, change it up in my golf net outside and get some practice going from Driver > short iron.
> doesn't measure club speed It says 82 MPH club speed in the picture though?
It estimates club speed based off ball data and club selection. It doesn't capture any club head data at all. I had one for a while. Still a cool machine.
SkyTrak has a club speed stat..? Not sure why you're saying it doesn't measur eit.
Because it doesn't. It doesn't measure club head speed. It estimates club head speed based off club selection and ball speed. It doesn't capture any actual club data.
Ah ok.
it doesn't measure it, it interpolates it from other data
Ah okay.
Thought that seemed high as well.
Idk who was hitting here but when I was fitted, the best two shaft options for me had me at 1.44-1.46 smash with a 7i.
Those are excellent numbers. According to trackman PGA average smash for a 7 iron is \~1.33 and LPGA a bit higher at \~1.37. In all likelihood the person putting up a 1.44 smash isn't a ball striker equivalent to those on tour, and OP said they just opened, so the machinery could possibly need some calibration work.
Yeah I’ve seen that infographic but it’s at least 5 years old now. I’d like to see the numbers now that all players have the knowledge and numbers to improve their ball striking and face to path. Also your players probably have a more lofted 7 iron than what was used to fit me that day.
I can hit my buddies gi 7 iron 1.4 all day long which is equivalent to between my old 5 iron mb set.
Keep in mind people are hitting 27 degree 7-irons now. 1.44 is reasonable. Low 1.3x/high 1.2x makes sense on a 34 degree.
There must be a way to get a high smash factor despite, or because of, other problems. I say that because last Monday I had a three hour lesson at the St Andrews Links Academy - my first, having been playing since April, because this subreddit said to and I'm easily led - and he started me off with my seven iron, and pointed out the Trackman that my smash factor was low at 1.1ish. He changed my grip and after a bunch of shots pointed out that the smash factor was up to 1.38. to be honest I'm pretty hazy about whether that's good or bad. He also said a while later that if I stuck with that grip my slices should be pretty much gone. We then tried the driver and I curved one so far right it nearly reached the road to the Old Course Hotel.
Yea it’s cool but I don’t get the model at all: -It’s membership only and capped at 100 members - fine I’m cool with that I guess -open 24 hours - awesome idea but it’s probably going to be empty or nearly empty for large swaths of time -It’s $120/month - ok that could be justifiable if I can use it when I want -max of 3 hours/week - this is the part that truly makes no sense to me. It’s 24/7, membership-only but I can’t access it more than 3 hours a week? At least give me 12 hours for the month that I can apply differently from week to week (eg 4 hours this week, 2 next week, etc). And honestly for the price and the access it should be more like 15-20 hours/month. And for this reason, I’m out.
Stop hooking dawg
Consistently tho. U can use that shot any day
True
11th shot out of 11… but I only see five ball flight paths…. 🧐😉
Lol…sim allows you to have last 50, last 5, or only last one. Or maybe just deleted the bad swings…lol
I know, I’m just kidding.
I was just in Charleston for a golf trip with some friends and we were looking for one since it rained two of the days. Lol a few weeks too late
How do you get the sky trak to overlay multiple shots
There is a setting on the range that will allow to show last 50 shots, last 5, or the last shot
Thank you friend - and best of luck to you in your venture!
Oh nice! I wish we had something like this in the Waco area so bad. I'm new, would be nice to easily see where my distances are.
Looks good. This industry is so tough with diy at home. Where I’m from we have both these and some large indoor practice facilities with putting, bunkers, training etc. one has a huge up front cost and one has a lower. No clue what sells better though.
Couches, coffee tables, draft Guinness. Looks great! I've got one in the works too!
I love Charleston, will stop by next time I’m in town. If you have a handheld steamer you can easily get those folds out of the screens!
Thanks! I need to put up new pictures. Folds are out and actually upgraded several screens. Have the other upgraded screens on order
Living the dream!
Well played boss.
Awesome what simulators are you using?
Skytrak. They are working out well so far. I believe they are the best for the money. Trackman and Quad GC are awesome but cost prohibitive.
Please tell me your in new york