Latest / PlayBetter's Golf Tech Weekly / #11: Talking about Building a Golf Simulator Setup with Danny Pfeiffer
Transcript
- PlayBetter: went to my brother's house and out of nowhere he had a net set up in his basement with a Repsoto and his iPad about as basic as you can get. Hit balls in his basement for about an hour and instantly knew I needed to get a setup like that for myself. I made the space in the garage. It was pretty easy to set that up. It's a budget setup too, even though it's a permanent installation. I only spent probably about $3,500 on every Welcome back to Golf Tech Weekly. Mark Shefforgian and Daniel Fitzpatrick at it once again. And this week we're joined by our buddy and Play Better Content team colleague Danny Pfeiffer. Danny creates some awesome launch monitor review content both for Play Better's YouTube channel as well as for his own Garage Golfers channel. ⁓ Last week we talked about the Masters including how you yourself can play Augusta National right in your own home. And there is no better person to have on to talk about exactly how to do that than Danny. He's got not one, but two SimStudio setups. So the envy of all of us. Today, we're going to get into SimBuild tips. Pick Danny's brain on some of the things he's learned. ⁓ Danny, how you doing? I'm doing great, Mark. Thanks for the intro. It's good to be here today. Awesome. Awesome to have you. Guys, full disclosure, I'm coming off an absolute binge viewing of the Masters. ⁓ I really probably didn't get, wasn't too healthy this weekend. ⁓ I was pretty much locked in wire to wire, unbelievable tournament. I'm sure you guys were watching. Daniel, in fact, I know you were watching. What stood out? Anything memorable? ⁓ Tell us about your experience. Yeah, it was a great week, obviously, as it always is. Always love that week as we talked about a little bit last week with Gabe. It always feels like it kind of kicks off the golfing season and it reenergizes everybody, even those of us who are lucky enough to play golf year round. ⁓ It almost feels like the start of a new year in golf. So it was always, you know, really, really fun competition. ⁓ Beautiful scenery to look at all day when you're watching that beautiful golf course and. ⁓ you know, for the front nine of of Sunday, it looked like it was going to be an insanely close finish. And it turned out to be, you know, pretty exciting down the back nine like it like it usually is. So like I was texting with you a little bit, Mark, on the side and even some of my friends, you know, it's like you get the whole eight and whole nine and you can just feel that the energy is coming and that tournament just always delivers. It was awesome. I loved every minute of it. Yep. Danny, were you were you locked in? Watched. watched almost all of it. Really enjoyed Friday, seeing some crazy low scores there. Was rooting for Rory and Justin Rose playoff redo. Didn't quite get there, but we saw some very human golf, I think, and that kind of resonates with everybody who's watching. Really enjoyed playing Saturday on the sim, playing Augusta with my brother and a buddy while we had the Masters on in the back. That was my first time doing that, and that was a lot of fun. That's awesome. That's awesome. Any any favorite shots? I mean, it's a terrible one. But Justin Rose's duff chip at hole 12 was I mean, it was a terrible shot, but somehow it was my favorite because we've all been there kind of a little bit. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Heartbreaking at the same time. Yeah. Yeah. Obviously, Rory's Chippin was amazing, too. Yeah. ⁓ man. No kidding. Yeah. Well, cool. Well, ⁓ yeah. So from the TV to your own home, Danny was doing it live as he was watching. ⁓ Guys, I think it's really this simple. If you're a golf junkie like we are, you're in one of two camps. You either have a golf sim studio set up in your home or you dream of having a golf sim studio set up in your home. I don't think there's any in between any longer. And so Danny has two of them. ⁓ He's made something of a sideline career, helping people just like all of us figure out how we can make the dream a reality. ⁓ Learned a lot from your builds. I'd imagine Danny, mistakes to avoid, tips maybe you'd recommend is universal. And today, you're so kind to join us to share what you know. ⁓ So I guess to kind of kick that off, ⁓ Danny, where's your first build, SIM build, what's in it? And then how did the second build come about? Yeah. You know, it's interesting. The first build I had was was very basic and it was inspired by, went to my brother's house and out of nowhere he had a net set up in his basement with a rap soda and his iPad about as basic as you can get. Hit balls in his basement for about an hour and instantly knew I needed to get a setup like that for myself. I was like, all you need to spend seven, 800 bucks in a net? you know, I had an iPad already and that's where I started. I started with that exact same setup, basically just a net and a rap soda. ⁓ And I set it up in my garage just kind of to see if I liked it. I'd pull the net out, get the cars out of the garage, set up the rap soda. And ⁓ the thing I'll tell you is if you even think you're modestly interested in a setup like that, ⁓ there's almost no point testing out the what if I like it. The go big or go home notion to some extent. If you're even thinking about it, you're going to get into it and you're going to progress in your build almost inevitably. So it's what I did. I ended up buying more and more and incrementally upgrading my garage space until I had a projector and a screen and some curtains surrounding it. it's not a big jump to get from that. I got a net and a launch monitor. I have a basic SIM set up with a projector. The cost delta. I think it's not as big as a lot of people think it's going to be. And that's what surprised me how you really can get into a pretty affordable setup that gives you 90 % of the gameplay experience that you'd get if you spent two, three, four times as much as a baseline. Yeah, I think that's an awesome point. Let's talk about myth versus reality, because I think there's a lot of them. And I think cost is probably the biggest one. I think there's a big assumption that it costs a fortune to have ⁓ a SIM studio set up. And that's, that's not necessarily the case. And even if that was the case a few years ago, it certainly isn't anymore. Just as you said, Danny, mean, so many options in the sub thousand dollar launch monitor market, so many of them that are compatible with even a smartphone. ⁓ Just as you said, a, a, a, hitting net and a, a, a, a MLM two pro and in your case, an iPad. and you're off and running and you haven't even cracked, I don't know, you barely cracked a grand there, I suppose, after you added in the hitting net. ⁓ you get right, just over a thousand dollars, I think, you know, a decent mat, a launch monitor, and assuming you've already got an iPad or a phone or something like that. Yep. It's all you need to get into it. Yep. Can't forget the mat, of course. ⁓ Daniel, you're talking to customers all day long. Many of them are trying to figure this out for themselves. ⁓ What are some of the things that people may not understand about pulling this off? Yeah, I think Danny would agree with this. Like initially, you probably think, ⁓ you know, like this is crazy expensive. So obviously cost is a huge thing as we as we touched on. And I think if you search around, especially like our website alone on playbetter.com, we have a lot of pre-built packages ⁓ that are basic with hitting nets and then they get extravagant, you know, as much as you want to build it out or whatever. ⁓ But you can also go modular, like Danny said, with the cost side of things, which is really cool, in my opinion, and you can build as you go and enhance as you go. ⁓ But the biggest thing that we run into is helping people be educated on the right type of space that you need. ⁓ You know, is this something that you are you going to use it alone yourself? ⁓ You know, you're to have friends over to entertain them from time to time. Are those friends or other family members? Are they, know, are they right or left handed or both? ⁓ Because that changes the required dimensions a little bit, in my opinion. And, you know, if it's something just for you yourself, then you can get into a narrower space. You have to just be comfortable swinging yourself and then look at whether we want to do a net or a screen option. there are certainly some introductory questions that our team of experts definitely ask customers to kind of understand what they want out of the system. Because as Danny can probably attend to, every person is going to use this system maybe a little differently. And so It's part of that almost interview process we do with customers is to just understand what they want. And then we tailor what we have to them. And if it's something that we can't find in a pre-built package, we can build them something out in the pieces that we do have. So ⁓ I do think the space, everybody thinks, ⁓ I need this huge space. And for certain radar products, you do need a little bit more depth and space in the area. But the biggest thing is knowing what you want out of it. And then we can find something for you. mean, Danny, when you were going through this, you have an idea like, this space is perfect? was there some brainstorming and measurement process involved with that? Yeah, I had the benefit of seeing my brother set up and kind of understanding the space constraints. And I measured my garage that night and figured out I had enough space. I figured for me, I needed about 16 to 18 feet in depth. total, you know, with the the Rapsodo needing seven feet or something behind it and about similar in front. ⁓ Like you said, my garage in the suburbs where I set this up, the space constraints, I don't really have space to set up like a couch and seating for friends. is kind of a more intimate setting and a standard suburban two car garage. ⁓ My other space has significantly more room. I've got a couch back there. I've got a coffee table. ⁓ But it is a huge consideration. think a lot of people are going to be bound to a camera-based unit because the extra space you need for those radar units, it is a luxury in a garage-type setup that I think not a lot of people can squeeze in. The camera units, we'll talk about this in a little bit, but they have a lot more flexibility and placement. They're a little bit easier to get up and running, and that's something that's a consideration. I wish I thought about more in the beginning. Yeah, yeah. Well, great points. ⁓ Before we get deeper into that kind of discussion of radar versus camera versus overhead, and some of those specifics of the space requirements. ⁓ Danny, so just kind of continuing on your dream journey, because we're all kind of living vicariously there. ⁓ How did the second space then become a necessity in your life? Why did you decide that one wasn't enough? Yeah, so I'm fortunate enough to have a another property in mountains that has a detached garage, really kind of big workshop style. And I thought that would be a great place to have a permanent setup. So as much as I like having this place here in the suburbs where I can still park the cars and tear it down, ⁓ when I want to make content, it's especially burdensome because I got to set all that up and take it down. my initial inspiration was really, I'd like a place that I can just leave set up. I can have some recording stuff set up in case I want to make videos and content. And I also got, I got a little bit jealous, you know, when I was looking at people with real enclosures and some more robust setups and thinking about a permanent installation of maybe an overhead unit, I wanted a space to support that. ⁓ And I made the space in the garage. It was pretty easy to set that up. It's a budget set up too, even though it's a permanent installation. I only spent probably about $3,500 on everything, the enclosure, the mats, the net, the turf, I mean the screen, all that stuff. Yeah. But it is, when I get to go play there, and I don't have to set everything up, I've become a little bit spoiled. And so coming back here and doing the rigmarole to set up and tear down, you know, it becomes a little harder for me to use the space when I have the other one. But they both get plenty of use. Yeah. Yeah. Well, there is, you know, there's many ways to do it, I guess, is one point. You can have a fixed kind of permanent install or you can kind of continuously install and tear down. They're now coming out with better and better solutions to address exactly that the the vanish screen series that is retractable enclosure that literally raises and lowers from your ceiling is like the perfect garage option. We're going to actually tease that here at the end of this episode because we do have a giveaway that includes exactly that. ⁓ But what about the the ⁓ setup required? Danny, you've been through it. Daniel, you're talking to customers. ⁓ How hard is this? How handy do you have to be? Because I do think that that's another big barrier to entry that people think of as like, ⁓ man, like, I mean, if I can get over the cost thing, fine. But man, like, I can't see myself installing this whole thing. Like, I'm not that handy. know, ⁓ what's been your experience, Danny? Yeah. I, you know, it's one of the benefits of the pre-made packages is it's as easy usually as, you know, snapping together a couple of poles, running some elastic bungees around things, very simple to set up. When you start thinking about saving money and DIYing more, obviously, that comes more into play. You know, how are you going to set up a screen without the full enclosure build? You got to figure out some mounting options of your own in one way or another. The bulk of the complexity to me, It resides in mounting the projector. There's some alignment work. You've got to get exactly right. The distance is the measurement. It's the one thing you really don't want to have to do over. The rest of it's not real involved, I think. No matter what direction you go for the enclosure or screen, I think most people could handle that kind of an install. ⁓ The launch monitors, they're essentially hot swappable. Whichever launch monitor you want to try, that's easy to swap out. I think if you're going, it's one of the benefits of going pre-made versus DIY, right? If you don't want to spend a lot of headache and a lot of manual effort or you feel intimidated, getting a pre-made solution is obviously the way to go. If you feel a little handy, if you're willing to take a little bit of a risk, there's a lot of ways you can DIY something that might fit your exact space a little bit better. Mm-hmm. Yeah, cool. Daniel, of course, we've got a lot of those pre-made options available at playbetter.com. We've got packages that include everything that one would need. You've got the enclosure, the impact screen, the hitting mat, ⁓ the projector, even the launch monitor that comes in the enclosure. ⁓ What do you deal with, Daniel, when you're talking to customers? ⁓ How long does it take somebody to set something like that up? ⁓ if there is a tougher stumbling block in that kind of chain of events that might trip somebody up and just kind of what do you tell people? Totally get a lot of customers who feel maybe a little intimidated, ⁓ especially certain generations of customers who may not be the most tech savvy, maybe thinking like, this is going to be way too much for me to figure out. And we get a lot of that concern a lot. But as Danny said, mean, The pre-built packages really do make things very easy, in my opinion, for the user to build it. if you're not confident in it, a standard general contractor, a handyman, you could hire maybe for a couple of hours and it could be installed. So what I like to tell customers, and I don't know if this is horribly accurate, Danny, but I believe it is, ⁓ like the pre-built SimStudio packages that we have, that enclosure and fabric I feel is the easiest to install on the market. I've installed a few myself. And I think it's very similar to putting a tent up at a campsite. You know, kind of put the poles together, the fabric all stretches around and just Velcros together. ⁓ But like Danny said, the biggest piece of it is just getting through the projector settings. And we have tons of instructional manuals that assist you in doing that. And we have a team that can help you ⁓ that, you know, if you get stuck on something. So, you know, we do make the process overall relatively, you know, painless at the end of the day. ⁓ And people ask again, you how long is this going to take me to install once I get everything? And, and honestly, you know, if you've got a basic handyman capability of putting furniture together, like, know, that you might buy online or something like that. I really feel like you can put everything together and be set up and hitting balls and maybe less than two hours. ⁓ You know, I mean, the, the downloading the software and getting profiles and things like that started, that takes a little bit of time. ⁓ But the one thing that's beautiful about PlayBetter is, you know, once you get your package and you have everything set, maybe this launch monitor isn't your favorite. Well, plugging and playing a new launch monitor, as Danny said, is super easy. And we do have a great return exchange policy to make sure that you get a product that you like. So ⁓ not to get too salesy on this stuff here, but ⁓ the pre-built packages are awesome. And there's a big reason why we sell so many of them is because they're really user friendly and allow you to have options without You know, it can be overwhelming, obviously, but it gives you some options to make you feel comfortable and confident that you're going to be able to get this set up and get the simulator experience that you want out of it. it a one person job guys or two person job? I'll speak from personal experience. I set up an eight by 10 enclosure by myself in one day. A second person would have helped, but it's, it wasn't overwhelming by myself. Yeah. Yeah, I agree. I mean, I think the only thing I would want a second person for I mean, especially like I talked a lot about our prebuilt packages with with the play better some studios, how you piece it together is you basically you build the bottom half of the frame, you put the fabric over the top and then you lift it up on to the the top half onto the bottom half. So that's really the only spot I would maybe want an extra person for just easily lift that into the Yeah, point being there. I mean, you wouldn't you wouldn't necessarily need that buddy or spouse or or child or whomever to come help you for the entire install, but potentially for that one bit of it. ⁓ Great points. I think we've addressed two of the biggest pain points, cost being one of them. ⁓ It really can be much more affordable than people may realize. That includes going with ⁓ the full turnkey package. But if budget is of ultimate concern, just as Danny mentioned, there are DIY hacks, YouTube's full of them. Danny himself has got awesome experience with ⁓ with homemade stringing up curtains and and whatever else to kind of create ⁓ Side barriers or enclosure or protect the things that are behind the enclosure ⁓ So if you if you want to bring the cost even further down, you've got DIY options ⁓ we we've talked about the The labor that's involved with getting that done not probably quite as intimidating as people may want to make it out to be for most people. And I think Danny, you bring up an awesome idea or point. If your budget does allow it, why not just hire a handyman or a contractor to take the pain off of it, off of you? ⁓ And again, that's an extra cost, obviously. Probably not necessary for quite a lot of people, but for somebody that ⁓ maybe has some physical restrictions or is just intimidated by it or just can afford it, ⁓ That's a great option as well. So with that said, I think the next kind of pain point to really talk through and really to me, the most overarching one, as we talk about SIM builds in 2026 is space requirements. Um, you know, I tell people all the time that no longer is cost the biggest obstacle. It's now coming down to space. Um, most often ceiling height is, the primary concern. You've got to have enough room to swing a golf club comfortably without putting a hole in your ceiling or ⁓ damaging your golf clubs or injuring yourself. ⁓ Some people have irons only setups, ⁓ requires a little bit less space. ⁓ But Daniel, walk us through kind of some of the, there are specificities to different products, but the generalities regarding space requirements for. a photometric or an optical unit that sits to the side of the golf ball on the floor versus a radar unit that sits on the floor behind the golf ball versus an overhead unit that mounts from the ceiling. Yeah, totally ⁓ different requirements for each type of system. As you mentioned, I mean, I think across the board, the lowest I would ever tell someone for a ceiling height to go with any of the systems would be at nine feet. And that's even pretty tight at the end of the day. But a lot of people do feel confident that they can swing all their clubs with a nine foot ceiling height. So that's typically where I set my absolute minimum and then kind of tell people, you know, if it's lower than that, like you might want to walk out there and, you know, swing, swing all your clubs real quick and make sure that, you know what you're getting into here. So across the board, I would say at least a nine foot ceiling height. But other than that, I mean, the width and the depth do do kind of vary with the products. ⁓ you know, for a optical unit, first off, you know, there's not a depth requirement at all. You need to be able to be comfortable swinging a club. But if you're going to set up a sim studio with a mat or with a net even, you still do need some depth there. ⁓ Especially if you have an enclosure, you have to take into account how tall and deep is that enclosure because you want to make sure that you're far enough away from the edge of the enclosure, you're not going to hit your club on it and that you're again comfortable swinging there. So In reality with photometric systems, we're typically looking at, you you want typically around 10 foot of width. If you can go wider, it's great because it's a little easier to be able to swing at the center of the screen instead of being offset screen. ⁓ So at minimum, we always say around 10 feet and then depth wise, you still want that, that at least 13 feet of depth, maybe 14 or 15, depending how deep your enclosure is, ⁓ just to be again, comfortable swinging. But that's the main thing with photometric systems and the advantage is that you really just need to be able to be comfortable swinging and not feel restricted. A little tiny bit of depth to allow for a rebound as well off of the impact screen as well. what you talked about right there would cover that, Daniel. Yeah, totally. And that's one thing to mention too, is that when you're going through measuring out your spaces, you always want to account for at least a foot that you're going to lose between the screen, the net and the back wall. because it has to be able to flex and accept the shot and not hit that wall and ricochet back at you or else you're playing an unfun game of dodgeball there. Yeah. So that's one thing to consider in all of this. been some interesting videos I've seen on YouTube where people haven't put enough buffer and the drywall behind the simulator has been just destroyed. I know if you've seen those, that's the reactor. If the ball doesn't come back at you, it's damaging that wall behind it, which can get frustrating. Yeah, yeah. Well, how about for a radar? Yeah, radar definitely has some more depth. Again, you still need that foot behind the screen. So your total measurement for the footprint is going to be at least 17 feet for most systems. There are systems that are going to work in a little bit less space and they can be functional. But to be consistently accurate, I mean, you want at least eight feet between the device and the T-box and then another eight feet of ball flight. Yeah. We get people all the time that will say, okay, well, I've got 20 feet of space. I'm to go 10 feet and 10 feet. And you can do that. But in reality, your better setup is going to be eight feet from the radar to the tee and as much ball flight space as possible. And that's going to allow the radar to then measure the spin rate of the golf ball more accurately. And this is actually kind of a cool point, which most people won't know ⁓ is radar devices. They typically will need like an RCT ball or like a metallic sticker on the golf ball. And there's a very specific purpose for that. And because when you're hitting a driver, if you slow down the visuals of it and you actually look at the golf ball ⁓ rotating, like with a high speed camera between the tee box and the screen for any swing, that's typically like 160 ball speed or higher. The golf ball will not actually even rotate one entire time. Other time it gets to the screen. So that just kind of gives you a little insight of why you need those markings or why you need that specific golf ball with the radar systems is when you get into those higher speeds, it just. The ball isn't really rotating that much, believe it or not. And so it just helps assist it. And that's why when you have the metallic sticker, it points towards the screen. So when it comes off the clubface, that's the first thing the radar kind of reflects off of. So there is method to the madness and require there, ⁓ which just is some cool insight that maybe our viewers may not know about. Yeah. Something to certainly consider that if you do have more than that space, always, always push it to your ball flight. It just allows the radar to to see that golf ball spinning a little bit more. Yeah. Awesome point. A little bit more to guys too with the radar products because typically why people want to choose radar is they don't want to move the device for left and right handed players. And so to do that, you typically need more width. Otherwise you're moving the T box left or right, a center of screen. So, you you typically want that 12 to 14 feet of width. So that way everyone can just tee off in the center of the area. Yeah. Yeah, so some distinct advantages to both styles there when we're talking about the floor standing units. I think ⁓ on the surface, optical or photometric has a huge, huge advantage in that it saves you space, right? It also doesn't need to see it because it's capturing everything with a high speed camera or cameras at the moment of impact. It doesn't need to see that ball fly. And so you don't need to have all of that room depth that you would with radar. ⁓ However, those typically are the more expensive units. That's often another reason why people go with radar is because that is where we get into most often into that under $1,000 class of products. And then of course, the other big advantage for floor standing radar units would be just as Daniel touched on, the righty lefty scenario. So if you've got friends or family that are gonna regularly be joining you in your Sim Studio that are of the opposite handedness, then radar makes sense. But also, That's where overhead makes a lot of sense as well. In fact, I would argue that if budget allows and if you don't plan to take your launch monitor outdoors to the driving range and you want a fixed setup that's going to be out of the way and ⁓ completely kind of luxurious really and allow for the lefty righty setup and allow for the space saving setup minus the ceiling height ⁓ overhead would be what I might consider the ultimate. Would you guys agree and what do you see as the advantages of potentially going overhead if you could pull it off? I have so many thoughts on this one because I really value the versatility of the launch monitors that I play with and that I can take them to the range. I can take them to a friend's house. ⁓ That's been one of the reasons that I have not explored overhead units to date, especially since I have two setups and I'm often taking my launch monitor from one to the other. That said, I'm really interested in installing one in my mountain place and just having it there as a permanent setup. It solves for so many of problems. You don't have to tear it down and set it up. You don't have to realign it and calibrate it every time. It's not in the way. New users aren't afraid of shanking a ball into the unit. So it's a freer experience because you don't have anything visual in front of you. You don't have the set up and tear down headaches and the alignment and calibration headaches. Huge benefits. If you're set. on that unit really being purpose driven just for your indoor sim. I never felt like I was there personally, but recently I've been thinking more and more about putting one of those in because of those benefits. Yeah, sweet. Daniel, what about for space? What anything that customers need to take into account when it comes to overhead? Totally a little bit more. ⁓ with more than anything and obviously the ceiling height there there's a there's a hard requirement ⁓ on ceiling height because they are mounted above you and typically in front of the t box there is one model the the unicorn ixr it's actually mounted behind the the t box area as we we just lost power here at the play better studio yeah daniel's in at hq today he's in baltimore ⁓ actually interestingly i believe helping with a customer setup aren't you daniel We are. Yeah, we're going out to a facility later today. Here, just a second, Just a second. Well, Daniel, oh, they can make that aspect out there. Sorry, guys. Not sure what happened. So, yeah, mean, getting into into some overhead stuff. mean, yeah, it's it's honestly got some some real space requirements. The mounting height is is. definitely one of the most important because if you don't mount it high enough, it's not going to work. So it needs to be mounted at least nine to 10 feet in the air, depending on the model. ⁓ Most of them are able to be mounted at nine feet and they're typically mounted about three and a half feet in front of the T-box. So they are up in front of you up in the ceiling. ⁓ There is the one model that IXR it's mounted behind about three and a half feet, which I really enjoy because then it's definitely out of the way of anybody. you know, hitting striking at that that sort of thing. But yeah, it's, if I if I were to build one, that's what I tell people all the time. You know, if I were to build one, and I wanted to stay at home, I would certainly look at those options. We are you know, I am visiting in Baltimore this week to do some stuff here at HQ. And we're going to go check out a client for a commercial space, which I think in the last five years, if if we were to get a sales question. ⁓ Most of our customers for overheads were commercial spaces because the cost was so high for them and you're typically probably going to get them to get some return on investment or as Danny said, in a commercial space, you don't want something on the floor or someone can kick it or step on it or something like that. But now the cost is coming down on those as well, especially with items like ProTVX and even like the older IXO and stuff like that. The costs on those are coming down, which is encouraging. ⁓ But yeah, it's there's definitely some space requirements you have to keep in mind. And also the width, you definitely want at least 13 or 14 feet of width. If you don't, you're gonna have to look at something like a sliding track system where you actually have to move the device left or right. Or you have to look into something like the the foresight Falcon, which just has a massive hitting area and you can go a little bit narrower where you can tee off on each side of a larger HMAT. So that's what's so interesting about all of these options in 2026 is Each of them have pros and cons, as you might expect, but so many of them address really specific things. You mentioned the Falcon having the huge hitting ⁓ area. I mentioned the overheads typically being quite cost prohibitive, but then you have something like the ProTVX. I also mentioned how the optical floor standing units are often ⁓ not an option for people that are on a tight budget. But then again, you've got something like the Square. ⁓ And so the cool thing is, is there's an option. there is an option. You know what I mean? There's a way to do this. It's not free, but it's not as cost exorbitant as somebody may fear. The question is, should you do it? Here we are going into summer. Why in the hell would you want to play golf indoors? Danny, tell me. You've got two sim studios. You've also got beautiful Colorado summer weather. Do your indoor spaces get any action this time of year? They get so much, it's largely just because it's hard to get out. I think everybody's like, why aren't you getting out in the summer? And I'm like, well, it's $150 to $170. It's about five hours or more of time investment. It's coordinating schedules with friends who want to play. It's not a gimme. It's not a straightforward, like, oh, let's just go play golf. In Colorado, T-times are really hard to come by, especially in the Denver metro area. And so it requires a lot of planning. If I'm just on a whim, I get done with work early and I'm like, I'd love to go play around. I probably can't even get a T-time. And so there's tons of opportunity to play on the sim. If I want to get an impromptu round in after work, if I just want to warm up before going to play a real course, I can play the virtual version to make sure I understand the layout and I can warm up. There's so many reasons. Even in golf season, think, to break out the simulator and play and I do it. I do it all the time. In fact, the main reason I got into it when I started was cost justification. was like, spend $175 every time I go play around. I can go buy this launch monitor for $700 and think of how much value I get out of that. was what convinced me to jump in in the beginning. Yeah. Yeah. Daniel, you literally live closer to Cuba than you do Miami. It's always warm where you live. And yet you play in an indoor golf league. So why? Yeah, you're not wrong. mean, I'm closer to Cuba than I am a Walmart. No, it's, you know, I think for us, especially, and we have a little bit of a unique case where we don't have like a real driving range. But even so, It's nice to have that convenience, like Danny said. mean, the place we have, we're fortunate. It's not a manned place. So you scan a QR code, you go in and you can play any course or practice whenever you want to. So for me, maybe seven, eight o'clock at night, I'm not doing anything. Maybe say, hey, I'm gonna go out to the SIM place and hit some balls for an hour and just practice. And that's the beauty, as Danny said, is it's... when it's convenient for you. And that's the hard part too. Like even like Danny said, we might have sunshine, you know, 350 days a year. And that might be undershooting. might be a full 365 in Key West, but we only have one golf course for 110 miles. And so tee times are very scarce. If you want to play, sometimes you got to just go walk at 630 in the morning, right? When the sun's coming up and that might be your best chance to play for the week. So, Having that versatility or that convenience to go out and play when you want to is huge. Even for people who have kids, young kids, it's hard to throw that stress on the other parents and I'm going to play golf today. Have fun for five hours. Where you can just say, hey, I'm going to put the kids to bed and then I'm going to go out and play a few rounds on the sim. I've sold tons of sim setups to people in that exact scenario. So I think the opportunities are endless regardless of your climate. Because it opens up the the ability to work on the game when it's when it's convenient for you Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely nighttime wintertime People that are in metropolises where it may be a long commute to even get to the green space of a golf course ⁓ So many scenarios where where it makes sense I do wonder if sim studios drive divorce rates up or bring them or bring them down I could see it going. I got it before they got it in the mail. That might be a deciding. Mark, one other thing I want to mention, it's not logistics so much as just I like playing by myself sometimes and playing with a rando foursome. If I just want to play golf by myself, around here I'm always going to be with the foursome. it's not my favorite sometimes. Sometimes I just want. solitude. And honestly, I ⁓ get a little nervous around strangers playing at a course and going to spend that kind of money to feel uptight, you know, a little bit of performance anxiety. Sometimes it's just relaxing and nice to play around by yourself. And that's hard to do on the real course can do it whenever you want on the sim. think that's a very relatable thing. You're not quite the social pariah that you know, yet. That's exactly right. I mean, I think that's that's a very, very relatable scenario, Danny. And in a real honest take on that. Bottom line is, I mean, having a sim studio in your house just allows you to play golf whenever you want to. the condition and whatever attire you want to I mean, you know, you don't have to put on your fancy clothes or whatever. I mean, just get out there. So we actually joke about that a lot in our sim league because we have, we have one guy that plays that we play on Tuesday nights typically. And, ⁓ and he's a military veteran and he shows up and he typically got like a tank top or like a cutoff on and, know, and then we sit there we're like, Hey man, you gotta wear a collared shirt to the country club. Yeah. It's a, it's a comfortability thing for sure. It's nice to be able to just go out and get the conditions you want to, cause you can tune the software to, to be the conditions you want to play and practice in too, which is cool. Yeah. Yeah. Sweet. Fellas, before we get out of here, let's go through a little lightning round of ⁓ maybe some build scenarios or just kind of general golf tech state of the industry. Hit me with your first reactions, the answer that jumps to mind first. Danny, what's the most underrated piece of golf tech right now in your opinion? Yeah, you know, it's, I'm in an interesting. spot where I've tested a lot of units and I'm moving things back and forth and I have a lot of devices, iPads, computers, phones and honestly the SkyTrac, ⁓ the ST Plus at the current price point is such a value and it works with whatever you have. If you have a MacBook or an iPad, a PC, it doesn't matter. You get a really amazing gaming experience, amazing course play on any device and that's really unique. I think about the SkyTrac, it's super easy to set up. for people who just kind of want a no fuss optical camera based unit. ⁓ It's not one of the things that was on my radar when I was first shopping and I wish it was. So I'd say Skytrak, the ST plus or the ST max, they check a lot of boxes for people that, you know, they don't want to think about investing in a new device. Maybe it's worth checking out. It's a great answer. Would remind people to check out some of Danny's content regarding exactly those products. He's reviewed quite a number of launch monitors, but Danny, I did love your shootouts between the Skytrak Plus and the ST Maxx and some of your drill downs on each of those products individually. So people check that out for sure. ⁓ Daniel, one thing that would surprise people about SimGolf. I think we covered it a little bit today, but I think it's just the cost. ⁓ You know, even in the last two or three years, it's become insanely affordable. I mean, there's launch monitors. You can build a golf Sim out with the Garmin R10 for, you know, less than a couple thousand dollars. If you want a full setup, even with a net, I mean, we're talking a thousand dollars and you've got a full setup in your garage and you can play Augusta national on home to hero now with the, with the upgraded and enhanced horses. You know, if we're talking, you know, what's the biggest thing that's going to surprise you. It's definitely going to be the cost. Just to be able to get a full setup and be able to play golf. Like Danny said, if you think about how much you invest into playing and paying for green fees, you can invest that even in a pay over time option ⁓ with a firm or something like that and really pay over time, just like you would for normal green fees and then you have that full setup whenever you want to use it. So for me, it's just the cost and every day there's rumblings of new products and new things to make this more affordable, which is awesome. Yeah, sweet. ⁓ Danny, the man with two sim setups. ⁓ If budget was no concern, ⁓ tell us your dream setup. Yeah, I, you know, right now I'm still on the budget end of things with a 1080p projector. I have a pretty small enclosure, a 10 by 8 enclosure. So my dream setup, the upgrades I would look at were an overhead unit for that space, like we discussed, a bigger enclosure. Daniel, kind of as you discussed, if you want to hit in the center of a screen, I think most people underestimate the width that they need. That's not something people think about. And in a 10 by 8 enclosure, if you want to hit out of the middle, you need about three feet wider than the enclosure. I'd like an enclosure wide enough to where like wall to wall the enclosure I can hit out of the center and I don't need any extra space. you know, maybe something like 12 or 15 feet wide someday. And then a 4K projector would be great. But that comes with, I need a stronger gaming PC to power 4K graphics. There's this chain of dependencies that all need consideration. That's it. Maybe. a unicorn, maybe a falcon, bigger screen, 4K projector. It's my dream setup. I love that. I love that. That would probably be right along the lines of my dream setup as well. A big 10 by 17 enclosure that played better. I like the four side falcon because of the huge hitting area. I just think that's a nice luxury. I also love the FSX Play software. say. ⁓ I would throw in a fiber belt hitting mat. ⁓ To me, that's a non-negotiable. I think one thing that people underestimate about sim golf or indoor golf is that hitting mat. Not only do you want something that's going to be durable and that's not going to ⁓ cause injury, of course, those are our primary concerns, but you also, people don't really appreciate that club turf interaction and how that affects the reality of the whole experience. ⁓ There's some pretty great science out there that really does show that, you know, if the mat is too soft, ⁓ the club, the ball's going to be hitting too high on the club face, not, not appropriately replicating what you're going to find out on a, on a natural turf. And conversely, if the, if the mat is too hard, ⁓ you're going to be hitting the ball a little bit too low on the club face typically. And so that club turf interaction, I think is a key. key point to consider when you get into kind of the subtleties of creating the most realistic experience and for that to me fiber belt is the way to go they are more expensive but they certainly are very very durable and I think that they allow for the most realistic ⁓ experience ⁓ yeah yeah Danny what would you upgrade next in your in your own setup yeah I think it's the projector actually I think you know I 1080p is great but having seen some 4K setups, ⁓ once you've played on one, you're kind of like, And I had that feeling myself. ⁓ Mats is actually another thing I'm going to upgrade soon. When you're in a garage and you're off a concrete floor, was actually the first thing I upgraded. I had a cheap mat I had in the backyard, like a half inch thick. And ⁓ that just doesn't cut it for swinging your irons on the concrete garage floor. It's a big one to keep in mind, that impact. if you're planning on hitting irons. Yeah, especially when you consider, I mean, let's face it, you're going to become an addict pretty quickly. You're going to be out there, know, next thing A hundred shots before you know it, right? That's right. Daniel, hit us with your favorite launch monitor package on playbetter.com. Yeah, well, I don't think it's just my favorite. I think it's been a lot of our customers' favorites too, because, you know, the launch monitor in my favorite package has been out of stock now, I think, even since the holiday time period. And it's a system that we've talked a little bit about briefly, just touching on the indoor Sim League that I play on with a Pro TVX. the system I keep navigating back with a lot of customers who want overhead and permanent installs is our Sim Studio complete package with a Pro TVX. And it's at a nice $10,000 price point. The only thing you have to add to that is a gaming PC to run whatever software of your choosing. Most people are going GS Pro route because there's no additional subscriptions there with the Pro T. But that's definitely my favorite overall package because it's definitely the system I have the most experience on. But as we've kind of touched on too, the overheads are becoming more popular or it feels like they're becoming more popular. I just think that's a really good value at the end of the day ⁓ to be able to get in under that $10,000 price point. ⁓ Again, doesn't include the PC, but ⁓ when you're talking about what's there, it's a really cool package in my mind. I think the SkyTrack Plus package for under five grand is a really close second. And it's like neck and neck right there, as Danny said. When you talk about the ease of use and everything that their software comes with, it's tough to battle out those two. So it typically comes down to those two packages for me. But ⁓ for me personally, if I was buying one, I'd try to get as hard as I could to get into the Pro T personally. Awesome. Tough to go wrong with either of those choices really is. ⁓ Guys, this has been awesome. ⁓ Danny really, really appreciate you joining. ⁓ Let's not make this the last time. know, Danny's on our team here. He's on the squad at Play Better. ⁓ I would encourage everybody to check out the content he's created for Play Better's YouTube channel, as well as for the Garage Golfers channel. Just a lot of really, really good stuff there. Always very honest, always hands on. Just a normal dude, just like all of us that wants to play golf in his house ⁓ and has pulled it off not once, but twice. ⁓ so Danny, just really appreciate you coming on and sharing your wisdom. Thanks, Mark. I appreciate ⁓ it. It's exactly what I'm trying to do is I'm trying to get people to realize how easy and affordable it is to get into that, make this accessible for folks who maybe have nothing more than a garage at their disposal. Yeah. Yeah. Before we wrap a quick shout out to the play better team who put on the whatnot sale this past Saturday It was so wild that it actually ran into this Monday yesterday. We're filming today on Tuesday An absolute insane event for play better We had Gabe Aluisi from the let's play through YouTube channel in Baltimore at the play better warehouse live auctioning a bunch of inventory It was crazy. It literally like eight hours of non-stop Golf Tech items being auctioned off on Master Saturday. Our warehouse team absolutely crushed it. Gabe and his crew, same thing. Just an awesome event that generated a ton of buzz and excitement. Daniel, you and I were texting on the side just as this was going on about like, can you believe this? that like this? Then Daniel ended up pulling out his wallet and making a purchase. Even though he vowed not to. Yeah, well anyways, ⁓ now that was that was awesome. A reminder to stay tuned for future events and sales. ⁓ More good stuff from Play Better around the corner always. In fact, we've got a current giveaway right now with entries accepted through April 28th. You can go to Play Better's ⁓ at Play Better on Instagram for your chance to win a Vanish 11 retractable golf simulator and a SkyTrak Launch monitor that's a six thousand dollar value could be yours Entries accepted through April 28th. The giveaway is on April 29th. That is at at play better on Instagram Daniel just very quickly the vanish 11 retractable golf simulator. What is it? Why would somebody want it? Yeah, if I had a garage and I was wanting to maybe not dedicate the space solely to that ⁓ kind of how Danny talked about sometimes he has to set it up and take it down at times. This is the cream of the crop option for that in my opinion. ⁓ Especially if you go with a more upgraded version of the remote option, you can tie it to Alexa and you can walk out to your garage and say, hey, Alexa, lower my screen. And it's like a click of a button and it rolls right down off the ceiling. ⁓ Most people in that scenario, they have a floor position launch monitor. They put it down, quick calibration, and you're hitting balls or playing around a golf in a few minutes. Really cool way to, you know, especially in colder climates, you know, you get snow, you want to park your car inside. You can roll everything up right into the ceiling. You know, maybe slide the hitting mat out of the way real quick. And then you've got your garage back. So ⁓ maybe easier to talk to the wife and installing in that space too, that you're not ⁓ solely dedicating the space to that. But it's such a cool giveaway, especially with the Skytrak Plus, which I think we're all big fans of here on this pod. ⁓ Just ⁓ to have the unique ⁓ combination of those two in one giveaway is awesome. So I think you'd be crazy not to get in there and try to win that. You know, it's as simple as as following the steps on the post, we've got pinned there on on our Instagram account. So definitely check that out. I think it's an awesome package. ⁓ I would love to have that in my own house one day. Yes, fantastic. All right. That'll do it from here. Thank you to everyone who watched and listened. Thank you again to Danny Pfeiffer for joining us. ⁓ Please join us next week. Same time, same channel for another episode of golf tech weekly. And until then get in the SIM or keep dreaming of your own build. Thanks everyone.