Host the Ultimate Sim Night: Formats & Food

Quick answer: A great sim night needs three things: a tournament format that works across skill levels (ambrose/scramble or closest-to-the-pin), a lefty/righty-friendly setup, and enough food and drinks to keep non-golfers entertained. Skip stroke play — it’s slow and boring for mixed-skill groups. Set up a side net for the guy who’s never swung a club.

Your buddies are coming over and you have absolutely no idea what you’re doing.

Good news: you’ve already won the hard part. You have a simulator. You have a space. The only question is whether Friday night turns into “golf but in a garage” — or the thing your buddies text about at work on Monday.

I’ve run enough sim nights to know the difference. It’s not the hardware. It’s the format. The food (this matters more than you think). And the one adjustment nobody tells you about until you’re watching a guy skull a wedge into your drywall.

Let’s fix all of it.

The First Rule: Nobody Gets Eliminated

The biggest mistake guys make is treating a sim night like a real round.

Out of bounds? Reload. Shank into the side net? Drop and keep playing. Triple bogey on a par 3? Who cares. You’re in a garage with beers and your friends. Nobody is winning a trophy. Nobody is grinding for a handicap index.

One guy on the forums put it perfectly: “Having buddies over to golf in the winter up here in Colorado is a ton of fun. We just play, drink beer, and laugh at each other.”

That’s the energy. Hold onto it.

Tournament Formats That Actually Work For Mixed-Skill Groups

Your buddy Mike is a 6 handicap. Your other buddy Dave shoots 110 and once hit a tee shot that hit his own foot. You need a format where both guys have fun.

Here are four formats I’ve tested that work:

1. Best Ball (Scramble) — The Default

This is the format for sim night. Period. Four guys, two teams. Everyone hits, you take the best shot of the two, and both guys hit from there.

Why it works: Dave’s shanked wedge doesn’t ruin the hole. Mike’s laser approach saves it. Both guys contributed. Dave feels like a hero when his one decent putt drops. Mike feels like a hero carrying the team. Everybody wins.

How to set it up in GSPro: Game Modes → Best Ball → alternate or choose teams. Two-player teams. Three-hole warm up then 9 holes. Trust me, 9 holes in a sim is the sweet spot for a weeknight. 18 if you’re in for the long haul.

2. Stableford — The Honorable Mention

Nobody wants to card a 10 on a par 4 in front of their friends. Stableford fixes that. You get points based on score relative to par. Double bogey or worse gets zero points and you just pick up. No embarrassment. No snowman on the scorecard.

Best for: groups where skill varies but ego is intact. Dave picks up at double bogey. Mike birdies. Both have fun. Both have stories.

Set it: GSPro → Game Modes → Stableford → 36 point system (2 for par, 4 for birdie, etc.). 9 holes. Go.

3. Wolf — For the Competitive Crew

This is where it gets fun. One guy is the Wolf each hole. Before anyone hits, the Wolf picks a partner — either before seeing tee shots or after. If the Wolf goes alone against the other two and wins, they get double points.

Why it works: It’s not about handicaps. It’s about reading your buddies and making the right call. The 6 handicap can lose to the 20 handicap if he picks wrong. Strategy, trash talk, luck — all in one format.

Do not play Wolf with guys who get cranky when they lose. Everyone in the group needs to be able to laugh at themselves.

4. Closest to the Pin — The Warmup

Before the actual format, run a closest-to-the-pin contest on a par 3. Everyone hits three balls. Best shot wins the first beer. Loser buys the next round. Simple. Effective. Sets the tone.

The Lefty/Righty Problem (This Is Real)

If your group has a lefty, you already know. If you don’t know yet, you’re about to.

Most garage sims are set up for right-handed golfers. The launch monitor is on the right side of the hitting area. The stance mat is positioned for a righty stance. The lefty walks up, looks at the setup, and goes “uhhhhh.”

Here’s the fix:

Move the hitting mat to the center of the enclosure, not the right side. This gives both lefties and righties equal room. Your launch monitor (camera-based ones like SkyTrak+, GC3, Uneekor) sits centered behind the ball position, not off to one side. If you’re using a radar-based unit (Garmin R10, Mevo+), it goes behind the hitting area centered — which already works for both.

The real move: get a hitting mat that’s at least 3 feet wide and place it centered. Let the lefty hit from the left side, righty from the right. The ball position relative to the launch monitor stays the same. Both guys get clean reads. Nobody feels like a second-class golfer.

Side Nets: Because Some Guys Suck

You will have a guy who hits a wedge directly sideways. It’s a law of nature. It will happen on the third hole, after his second beer, when he tries to “get cute” with a 60-degree around a virtual tree.

Do not skip the side net.

A $60 golf net hung on a cheap curtain rod from Amazon, or a simple net draped from the ceiling on the right side, will save your garage door, your car, and your marriage. One guy on the forums: “My trial and error approach definitely caused some loss.” That loss was probably a dent in the drywall or a ball through a window.

Set it up before the first guest arrives. It’s not for the bad golfers. It’s for the guys who never miss — right up until they do.

Food and Drinks: The Non-Embarrassing Guide

You’re not a caterer. Your friends aren’t expecting a four-course meal. But there’s a specific tier of sim night food that works, and a tier that doesn’t.

The Rule

No greasy fingers. No sticky sauces. No plates that require two hands. Your buddies need to be able to grab food, set it down, swing a club, and grab more. That’s the design constraint.

What Works

Pizza slices cut small — Not the massive foldable slices. Cut each slice in half. One hand, one bite between swings.
Sliders on a tray — Costco sells 12 for $20. No plate needed. Grab and go.
Tacos (hard shell, but hear me out) — Set up a taco bar. Mini soft tacos work best. No shell shatter, no mess.
Charcuterie board but make it golf — Meat, cheese, crackers, grapes. Sounds fancy. It’s lunchables for adults. Zero cleanup.

What Doesn’t Work

Wings. I know you want wings. They’re sticky. They leave residue on clubs. They require napkins. You will have a guy licking his fingers before gripping his new $400 driver. Don’t do it.
Chips and dip. Grease + club grip = disaster. Everyone loses.
Anything that needs a fork and a knife. Nobody is cutting steak between holes.

The Drink Station

One cooler. Or one mini-fridge if you’re fancy. Keep it stocked.

Keep the bottles away from the hitting area. One knocked-over beer onto a swing pad or launch monitor base is a $2,000 mistake that happens faster than you think.

Designate a “no drink zone” within three feet of the hitting mat. Peace of mind costs nothing.

Software Setup for Sim Night

This is where most guys drop the ball. They load up the software, pick a course, and just start hitting. By hole four they’re scrolling through menus trying to figure out how to add mulligans while Dave is standing there with a beer in his hand.

Set up everything before anyone arrives.

GSPro Sim Night Settings

Pre-round warmup: 5 minutes. Unlimited balls on the range. Set the mode to “free hit” so nobody feels pressure. Give guys 10-15 balls to loosen up.
Mulligans: Turn them on. Set to 3 mulligans per 9 holes. This keeps the round moving but lets Dave erase that one shank.
Gimme range: 3 feet. Inside 3 feet? Tap it in. Nobody’s grinding 2-footers in a garage with a Coors Light in one hand.
Auto-putt toggle: Off. Putting is half the fun on a sim. But if your group is loose and drinking, set auto-putt to 6 feet. Keeps the pace up.
Tee boxes: Go one tee box forward from whatever you’d normally play. Sim night is not the U.S. Open. Let Dave hit driver-wedge into a par 5.
Wind: Off or light. You’re in a garage. Nobody needs to simulate a 25mph gust at St. Andrews just because the software lets you.
Red tees for the bad guys (optional): GSPro lets you assign different tee boxes per player. Mike plays whites. Dave plays reds. Both play the same hole. Both have a chance. Nobody feels bad.

Course Selection

Pick a course that’s fun, not punishing. Avoid anything with forced carries over water on every hole, super tight fairways, or stadium rough that eats balls.

Good first picks: Pebble Beach (open, forgiving, iconic), St. Andrews (wide fairways, no trees), TPC Sawgrass (everyone knows it). Bad first picks: Augusta (you’re not ready), Whistling Straits (you’re still not ready), anything Pete Dye designed to hurt people.

The Sim Night Schedule

Here’s the exact rhythm I use. Steal it.

6:30 PM — Guys show up. Drinks, catch-up, tour of the setup. Everybody wants to see the build. Let them geek out.

7:00 PM — Warmup. 15 minutes of free swings on the range. Crack the first beers.

7:15 PM — Closest to the pin contest. The loser sends a Venmo request for the first pizza.

7:30 PM — 9 holes. Best ball scramble. Mulligans on. Trash talk begins.

8:45 PM — Pizza arrives. Intermission. Eat, drink, talk shit about that one putt that lipped out.

9:15 PM — Back 9 (or a closest-to-the-pin shootout).

10:30 PM — Wrap up. Last call. One more drive each. Nobody leaves angry.

That schedule works for a weeknight. For a full Friday blowout, make it 18 holes starting at 7 with a longer intermission.

The Unwritten Rules of Sim Night

Some things you only learn by doing. Here they are so you skip the learning.

Have someone who knows the software. Not “kinda knows.” Someone who can navigate GSPro blindfolded. Nothing kills momentum faster than four guys standing around while the host scrolls through menus. Designate a software captain.

Know your launch monitor’s quirks. Does it misread certain swing types? Does it need perfect lighting for lefties? Does it have a 10-second delay between shots? Know it, tell your friends, and run with it. Nobody expects perfection.

Charge your devices. iPad, laptop, phone — everything plugged in before guests arrive. You don’t want to be “that guy” hunting for an extension cord.

Test the setup with a lefty. If you don’t have a left-handed friend coming, borrow a lefty club and test the alignment yourself. Left-handed guests can spot a non-functional setup from across the room.

Have spare balls. Real ones, not foam. The launch monitor reads real ball spin better. Keep a bucket of 24 on hand.

Set the vibe. Sim night in a cold concrete garage with a single flickering lightbulb is depressing. A $20 LED light strip makes it feel like an event. A Bluetooth speaker for music changes everything. Your garage can look like a bar or a dungeon. The bar costs less than you think.

The Only Rule That Matters

Everyone remembers the sim night where Dave skulled a wedge into the ceiling and it bounced back and hit him in the forehead.

Nobody remembers who won.

That’s not a joke. That’s the whole philosophy. Sim night is not about the scores. It’s about the fact that you’re in your garage, in February, in Minnesota, playing TPC Sawgrass with three of your best friends while it’s snowing sideways outside. In 2018, that would have cost you $20,000 and a contractor you’d wait three weeks for.

Now it costs a few beers and a setup you built yourself.

One more thing from the forums — the quote I keep coming back to: “I have never been happier with an investment. Period.”

That guy was talking about his build. But I guarantee you: what makes him happiest isn’t the launch monitor accuracy or the 4K projector. It’s the Friday nights. The buddies showing up. The text chain the next day.

If you want that energy every week — not just when someone volunteers to host — join or start a sim league. Same guys, same night, a whole season of it.

That’s what you’re building. Not a simulator. A reason for people to show up.

Your Next Move

You’ve got the guide. Now do the actual work.

Pick a format from this list. Best ball scramble is the default. Stableford if egos are fragile. Wolf if everyone can handle the heat.
Set up GSPro with those settings before anyone walks in.
Order the food. No wings. Sliders or mini-tacos.
Hang a side net. You won’t need it until you absolutely need it.
Text your buddies. Friday. 6:30.

Got questions about the software setup? Read the full software guide →

Want to share your sim night photos and format wins? Join The Tee Box community →

Your buddies are waiting. Send the text.