A message from Ace
You already know
you want one.
That's the thing nobody says out loud.
You don't need to be sold on the idea. You've already sold yourself — at 11 PM, down a YouTube rabbit hole, pricing things out in your head while everyone else was asleep.
You know what it would feel like. Garage. Screen. Your swing. February. You've pictured it.
So this isn't really about convincing you.
This is about dismantling the four excuses that have been living rent-free in your head for the past year — the ones that sound reasonable on the surface and fall apart the second someone actually pushes back on them.
Which is what I'm about to do.
By the time you finish reading this, you'll either pull the trigger or admit you never really wanted it.
Both are fine. But the excuses stop here.
Keep reading
↓Let me tell you exactly
what's been happening.
You've been thinking about this for six months. Maybe a year. Maybe longer.
And every time you get close — every time you price it out and almost pull the trigger — the same four things show up.
"Too expensive."
"No space."
"My wife will lose her mind."
"Probably a pain in the ass to set up."
Four excuses. Same order. Every time.
And here's the thing about those four excuses: Not one of them is true. I don't mean they're exaggerated. I don't mean there's a workaround. I mean they're factually wrong. Outdated. Built on information you absorbed years ago and never updated.
The "$20,000 simulator" doesn't exist anymore. The "complicated build" takes one afternoon. The space you think you don't have? Go measure your garage. I'll wait.
And the wife? The wife is a negotiation.
And you've been in harder negotiations than this.
Picture this
for a second.
It's January. Everyone else you know is putting their clubs in the closet and resigning themselves to six months of nothing.
You're in your garage. The screen is glowing. You're on 17 at Sawgrass, 155 yards out, and the number on the launch monitor is telling you exactly what your 8-iron is doing.
You've been out here four times this week. Your swing hasn't been this dialed since summer. When April comes, you'll show up to the first round of the season sharper than you've been in years.
Your buddy will ask what you did over the winter. You'll tell him. And you'll watch the look cross his face.
That's not a fantasy. That's what guys who built this setup tell me every single winter.
The only difference between them and you right now? They stopped treating this like a dream and started treating it like a Tuesday afternoon project.
The "$20,000 Simulator"
Doesn't Exist Anymore.
You're thinking of 2018. That year, a "real" simulator meant a Foresight GCQuad, a commercial enclosure, and a contractor you waited three weeks for.
That world was real. It's gone now.
What happened to simulator technology is the same thing that happens to every technology eventually. It got dramatically better. It got dramatically cheaper. At the same time.
The sensors that used to cost $4,000 cost $200 now. The software that cost $3,000 a year now runs $200 — or free. The projectors that needed $2,000 to look decent? $400. Better picture than the $2,000 ones from five years ago.
Here's what it actually costs to build a setup today:
The Entry Point
A launch monitor. A net. A mat.
The launch monitor is the size of a paperback. It sits next to the ball and reads everything — ball speed, launch angle, spin rate, carry distance, clubhead speed. Sends it wirelessly to your phone.
You order all three on Amazon tonight. Everything arrives Thursday. You're hitting balls Saturday morning with better data than your teaching pro had five years ago.
Five hundred dollars. You spent more than that on the driver that was supposed to add 15 yards and didn't.
The Sweet Spot
This is where you're playing courses.
Real launch monitor. Impact screen. Projector. Software. You're hitting into Pebble Beach on a Tuesday night in February while the snow is sideways outside.
Your buddies come over on Friday nights. You play 18 in 90 minutes. No tee times. No driving. No cancellations.
Your handicap starts moving for the first time in years — because you're practicing with real feedback instead of wandering around a range hitting mid-irons into the void. Most guys land here. Nobody upgrades away from it because there's nothing to upgrade to.
Buy Once, Cry Once
Tour-level accuracy. Full enclosure. 4K laser projector. A hundred courses including Augusta.
Your garage looks like it belongs in a Ritz-Carlton Golf Club. Your wife, who you were so worried about, secretly shows it off when her brother visits. You never think about upgrading because you're already at the top.
What you thought vs. what's real
The money excuse is dead.
This isn't just me saying it. The golf simulator market hit $2.12 billion in 2025 and is projected to reach $4.12 billion by 2033 (Grand View Research). That's not billionaires buying private sims — that's normal guys in garages. The technology got good enough AND cheap enough at the same time, which is rare. When a market doubles in eight years, the old price assumptions go with it.
Source: Grand View Research, Golf Simulator Market Report, 2025
You Have the Space.
I know you think you don't. I've heard this from hundreds of guys. Almost all of them were wrong.
Here's the math and it's almost offensive in its simplicity:
10 feet of depth.
8 feet of ceiling.
That's the whole number.
A standard two-car garage is 20 to 24 feet deep with 9 to 10 foot ceilings. You have double the depth you need. You could build a full simulator setup and still park your car.
No garage? Your basement works. Thousands of guys have done it.
No basement? There's a guy on Reddit who practices in his apartment, behind his couch, in his office clothes minus the shoes. Posts his session stats. Went from a 14 handicap to a 9 in one winter.
If he can do it in a Manhattan apartment in his khakis, you can do it in your garage.
Let's Talk About
Your Wife.
This is the real one, isn't it.
Not the money. Not the space. The conversation you haven't had yet.
I'm not going to tell you it's easy. I've read too many forum posts to say that. But I'm going to tell you something that every guy on the other side of this already knows:
It's not a wall. It's a negotiation.
And you've been in harder negotiations than this.
Here's what I've learned from thousands of guys who've done it: The wife objection is almost never about the money. Not really. It's about three things:
The space.
She had a mental map of the garage. Her car. Organized storage. Not a sports equipment warehouse.
A clean build — one that looks finished, not like a first draft — solves this faster than you think. Show her a picture of a nice setup. Watch her reaction shift.
Your time.
She knows you. She knows you'll be out there every night. She's right. You will be.
But here's what she hasn't thought through yet: When you're in the garage, you're home.
Not gone for five hours on a Saturday. Not at the bar after the round. Home. Thirty feet away. Door open.
The kids can come out and hit balls with you. Your daughter can play mini-golf on the simulator. You're present — just also golfing.
More than one guy has called this the solution to dad guilt. He golfs. He's home. He's available. Everybody wins.
The fairness question.
This is the real objection. The one underneath the others.
You're building something for yourself. What does she get?
This is the easiest one to answer — because the answer is: she gets something too.
This is called the Sports Truce. You get your thing. She gets her thing. Nobody holds veto power over the other person's thing.
You want a $2,500 simulator. She's been wanting that trip. That renovation. That piece of jewelry she mentioned twice while you nodded.
Both happen. Same week. No hierarchy.
One guy on the forums: "I told my wife we should finish the garage — make it nice for the kids. She agreed. I said a screen would be cool for movies. She agreed. I said, 'you know what else we could do with a screen?' She is a saint."
Another guy's wife said: "Sure — if you get me that ring I've been asking about since last year."
He agreed. Both parties walked away happy. That's not defeat. That's a clean deal.
I wrote the full tactical breakdown — five strategies from the slow play to the all-in Sports Truce, with real language you can use and a vacation planner that matches your simulator budget dollar-for-dollar with something she's been dreaming about.
It's Four Things.
Hold that number: four.
A launch monitor.
Size of a paperback. Sits next to the ball. Reads everything at impact. Sends data wirelessly to your phone. You turn it on. It connects. Done.
A net.
You hit the ball into it. It stops the ball. You hit it again. I genuinely cannot make this simpler.
A mat.
You stand on it. It's turf. Don't buy the cheapest one — your elbows will thank you. That is the full instruction set for the mat.
Software.
If you want to play courses instead of just see numbers, you download simulation software. Pick a course. It shows up on your screen. If you can buy a Netflix subscription, you can set this up.
Everything ordered tonight. Arrives Thursday. Set up Saturday morning. No contractor. No electrician. No permit. If you can assemble IKEA furniture without putting an Allen wrench through the wall, you can build this.
Now. Let me say something about "too complicated" that's a little harder to hear.
"Too complicated" is almost never about the build. It's about commitment. It's about becoming the guy who did the thing instead of the guy who was thinking about the thing.
And there's a quiet fear in there — what if I buy it and never use it?
So let me give you the one data point that matters:
The dusty simulator does not exist.
Not in the forums. Not in the communities. Nowhere.
You know why? A treadmill is a chore. You have to manufacture motivation for it. A simulator is the thing you were going to drive 40 minutes to go do anyway. You're not replacing a habit you hate. You're removing friction from a thing you already love.
The guys who buy simulators use them relentlessly. Before work. After work. At midnight. Four times a week. In February. Especially in February.
Here's What Actually
Happens to Your Life.
Not the specs. Not the accuracy ratings. The life.
January stops being dead time.
For most golfers in the northern half of this country, November through March is just gone. You're watching golf on TV. You're looking at your clubs in the closet. You're driving to the heated range to hit 40 balls into a canvas curtain and driving home feeling vaguely worse than when you left.
With a simulator, January is practice season. You're working on something specific — your dispersion at 150 yards, your launch angle with the 3-wood, your routine from 8 feet. You arrive at your first round in April sharper than you've been in years. Your buddies notice. You pretend it's nothing.
Your handicap starts moving.
This one is almost universal. Not because the technology is magic. Because you're practicing with feedback instead of hitting balls and hoping.
The numbers don't lie. The feedback loop is instant. One guy went from a 14 to a 9 in one winter. Two hours a day. A repeatable pre-shot routine for the first time in his life. Ten thousand reps of it. That's not an outlier. That's what happens when you practice with information.
Friday nights change.
You know how hard it is to organize a round? Four guys. One tee time. One Saturday that works for everyone. One guy who always cancels.
With a simulator, the conversation is: "Come over Friday. We're playing TPC Sawgrass." That's it. No tee time. No weather check. No driving. Guys show up. You play 18 in 90 minutes. You have beers in your own garage. Everyone goes home at 10 PM. Your wife sees that you're home.
This is a version of your social life that actually fits the life you have now.
Your kids get something they'll remember.
I saved this one because it lands differently.
Here's a real quote, no edits, from a guy on the Golf Simulator Forum:
"For the first 3 weeks, my 12-year-old daughter said to me daily — not exaggerating — 'this was worth every penny, Dad.'"
She's twelve. Playing Pebble Beach with her dad in the garage. She's going to remember that for the rest of her life. Not the hardware. That.
Nobody Regrets It.
I've read a thousand forum posts, Reddit threads, and comments from guys who pulled the trigger. You know what none of them say?
"I wish I'd waited longer."
Not one. Not in a thousand posts.
What they say:
"Light rain outside, 3 AM, I'm on 18 at St. Andrews."
— r/GolfSimulator
"I have never been happier with an investment. Period."
— Golf Simulator Forum
"Played last night when it was zero degrees and the garage was 70."
— r/GolfSimulator
"Having buddies over to golf in the winter up here in Colorado is a ton of fun."
— Golf Simulator Forum
"No regrets. It definitely cost more than I expected but it was worth every penny."
— Golf Simulator Forum
Every one of those guys was you six months ago. Standing at the edge of the decision. Running the same four excuses on the same loop.
Now they're at St. Andrews at 3 AM.
Here's What's Actually
Stopping You.
It's not the money. It's not the space. It's not the wife.
You've gotten comfortable with wanting something and not having it.
The dreaming is safe. The YouTube videos at 11 PM are safe. Pricing it out in your head — that's safe too. Because as long as you're "still thinking about it," you haven't risked anything. You haven't committed. You haven't become the guy who did the thing.
And you can't be the guy who did the thing and regretted it.
The dreaming phase feels like action. It isn't.
Here's what I know about you:
You work hard. You've been working hard for a long time. You show up for everyone who depends on you. You do what you're supposed to do — the lawn, the maintenance, the long Tuesdays, the unglamorous part of being a functioning adult with responsibilities.
And somewhere along the way, you decided that wanting something for yourself was optional. That the garage could stay empty. That the winters could stay long. That "someday" was an acceptable answer.
It's not. Someday is what you say when you're too comfortable to say yes.
You can build this for $500. You can set it up this weekend. You can hit your first ball on Sunday morning before anyone else in the house is awake.
And that first ball — in your own garage, on your own setup, that you built — is worth more than the money. Every single guy who's done it says so.
Stop researching. Stop dreaming. Start building.
Your Next Move.
The $500 Start
Garmin R10. A net. A mat. Order tonight. Set up Saturday. Hit balls Sunday. See your numbers for the first time in your life. Decide later if you want to go bigger. You probably will.
Find the right launch monitor →The Full Winter Setup ($2,500)
Screen. Projector. Real launch monitor. Software. Courses. The setup that changes your winters.
Step-by-step build guide →Handle the Wife First
Smart move. Five strategies. Real language. Vacation planner included.
The Wife Approval Playbook →One last thing.
When you build it — and you will — take a picture the first time you turn it on. The screen glowing. The garage that used to hold lawnmowers and bikes no one rides.
Send it to your golf buddy with no caption. He'll know what it means. He'll ask about it on the first hole next time you play.
And you'll explain it to him. You'll hear yourself sounding exactly like me right now — why it's not expensive, why the space thing was nothing, why the wife conversation was easier than you thought.
And you'll realize: You became the guy who says yes.
That guy plays more golf. That guy has better winters. That guy has no regrets.
He's been waiting on the other side of a decision you can make today.
It's time. Buy the sim.
Home Golf Hero is reader-supported. When you buy through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission at no extra cost to you. We only recommend setups we'd actually put in our own garages.
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