Our stairs are up against the foundation, giving us a big wall facing the rest of the basement. We figured we might as well turn it in to a collage and we have a pretty good start.
My favorites are:
The display case with a lot of my Barry Sanders football card collection.
The golf bag is an old Ram one we bought with clubs from an estate sale. Brandi cleaned it up and it makes a good display piece.
Coors Light was my beer of choice through college and my 20s.
Do I really need to say anything about Mountain Dew?
GO LIONS!
It’ll be cool to keep filling up the wall and then wrap it around the corner to the door and bathroom wall. We definitely need to pick up something Michigan and put up some personal photos.
This is the third post in this series about putting a golf simulator in our basement. Part one covered the PC build and part two was all about theenvironment. This one will cover all of the other electronics and some things that didn’t fit in the first two posts.
The launch monitor is the piece of equipment that “watches” you hit the golf ball and determines the spin, speed, direction, and angles. I guess you might call it the brains of the operation.
Before installing the unit, I had to do some electrical work in the basement. I removed a couple of lights in the area, rewired some lighting circuits, and added three outlets in the ceiling.
In order to mount the launch monitor to the ceiling I cut a piece of 3/4″ plywood that could fit in between the joists, resting on the bottom of the I-beams. Then I was able to attach the mounting plates directly to the plywood while I was on the ground. I even locked the launch monitor in to the mounting plate and then lifted the entire assembly up to the ceiling. I felt like it was so much easier than trying to align things while working above my head. This also gave me the flexibility to slide it sideways to dial in the placement. I eventually screwed the plywood to the joists.
At this point I didn’t have the turf and the side netting wasn’t installed. I couldn’t resist and had to hit a few shots. Here’s the very first hit, which was a little chip with an 8 iron.
Due to the distance from the PC to the projector being more than 10 feet, a normal cable wouldn’t work. I snagged a fiber optic HMDI cable from Target. I didn’t need 50 feet, but I had a gift card to use there. It took me a bit to realize this type of cable isn’t bidirectional.
Since most of the basement lights need to be off when using the simulator for a crisper image, I picked up a spotlight to point at the hitting area (the green is quite nice) and a track light (bulbs).
The launch monitor comes with ProTee Labs, which shows ball and club data and allows you to hit on a range. In order to play golf and have other practice options, I got the yearly subscription to GSPro, which is exceptional!
Not necessary for the golf sim, but I bought another Apple TV 4K and a mount. It’s connected to the projector so we can watch movies, football, or anything else. I need to figure out a sound system.
There were several other small purchases, such as an extension cord to run power to the PC, velcro tape to tidy up the wires running down the post, and parts to do the electrical work.
Here’s a video of the golf simulator in action.
I’m excited to see where this can take my golf game. I’ve already started The Strike Plan (from The Practice Manual‘s author) to improve my ball striking and I’m hoping to spend time daily working on my game or having fun with it.
The normal price of the ProTee VX is $6,500 before tax, but I got a bit of a holiday discount. The total cost for everything in this post was a whopping $9,049, bringing the grand total to $14,699. I feel like that’s middle of the road for a home golf sim because you can get really cheap or you can spend more on just a launch monitor! If you have any questions about anything, leave a comment and I’ll be happy to share more.
After I’ve spent more time using the simulator I’ll post some thoughts. There will also be some upcoming side projects.
A couple of weeks ago I wrote the first post in this series about putting a golf sim in our basement, which focused on the PC. This post will focus on the environment.
When we built our home, we did 10 foot basement walls, knowing we’d be putting in a golf sim. This gave us about 9’8″ from the concrete floor up to the joists, which is plenty of room for me to swing every club in my bag.
Back in April, during a Masters sale, I ordered the SIG12 Golf Simulator Enclosure and Side Barrier Netting from The Indoor Golf Shop. By following their setup video, it was very easy to put together. Later in the process, I used a hairdryer to smooth out the wrinkles and fold lines, though I’m not sure it helped much.
The next thing I got was the hitting strip, which is one of the most important aspects of a sim because you want it to hold up for a long time, while protecting your wrists. I bought The Original Country Club Elite based on the price and reviews. The strip is 20×36″ and just under 1-3/4″ thick.
After knowing the thickness of the hitting mat, I could focus on the mats and turf to surround it. I did a lot of online searching and didn’t find many recommendations, which was surprising. A Reddit thread pointed me to the ProGrass ProPutt at Lowe’s and they ship a 8×8″ sample only $1!
It felt nice and from what I’d read, a face weight of 50 oz was good for this type of use. I took the sample over to Menards and compared it to their 44 oz.
The choice was clear, so I made an order at Lowe’s for a 13×15′ piece. To create the base and a cushion under the turf I ordered 1″ thick puzzle mats from Amazon.
Quickly after we put together the enclosure and got a feel for the space, we decided to rotate to the adjoining wall.
The turf finally arrived and I trimmed off the factory edges and cut the width to 13 feet. After hauling it to the basement I cut out the locations for the hitting strip and a couple of 1.5″ shallow putting cups. The cups were actually too tall, so I shortened them to 1-1/8″ on the table saw. Cutting the holes in the turf was nerve-wracking. Too tight and the turf bubbles around the thing you’re inserting. Cut too much of the turf, making it too loose, and you can’t go back. I bought a carpet knee kicker for stretching out the turf to remove the wrinkles and bubbles.
Brandi was a big help with the turf. I’ve never done any carpet work, so I’m amazed at the level of flatness we achieved. I’m pretty sure neither of us has a future career as a carpet installer though. I had some good carpet tape for the edges, that we ran out and the light duty stuff I picked up from Menards was useless, so I ended up buying more of the good carpet tape from Amazon.
I filled the sandbags and installed the side netting.
To help protect the ceiling from sky balls and prevent anything from going through the heating ducts, I screwed OSB over the duct and 2 layers of old puzzle mats. I also bought a 10×12′ mesh tarp from Harbor Freight and mounted it a couple of joists in front of the enclosure and draped it across and over the back.
I’m curious to see how the tarp holds up, though hopefully it rarely gets hit by a golf ball. If it works, it was a cheap solution.
To protect the edges of the turf and hide the base mats, I built a border out of 2x4s ripped down the middle and stained it.
Everything I mentioned was $3,800 and brings the total to $5,650. The third post in this series covers the other electronics and everything else.
I’m putting a golf simulator in our basement, so this will be part of a series of posts about different aspects of the build and process.
When planning out the project, my first thought was to buy a gaming laptop for ease and portability. I have no need to move the computer around the house though and they’re very expensive. So I briefly looked at buying a pre-built gaming desktop, which can still be expensive. Building my own would save a ton of money. I hadn’t built a computer or even owned a Windows machine in close to 20 years and I was eager to dive in.
I found a starting parts list Reddit and swapped out a few things. Here’s what I ended up getting:
Total cost, with Black Friday sales, was just shy of $1,850.
I actually managed to put together a working computer! The only mistake I made was not connecting an extra cable from the power supply to the motherboard, which provides more juice for the CPU and memory. It may have been easier to connect all of the cables before installing the graphics card, but it may have caused other issues.
Then it was time to install the operating system. I downloaded an ISO of Windows 11 Home from Microsoft and created a boot drive on a USB stick with balenaEtcher on a Mac. I’ve used balena many times to create boot drives for installing Raspberry Pi operating systems, but Windows was not happy. During installation it was giving the error “A media driver your computer needs is missing.” I turned to Google and found out a Windows boot device is special and balena doesn’t do whatever is required. I used WinDiskWriter to create a new boot drive, which then launched a working Windows install.
After several reboots and various Windows updates, it’s a working PC. I’m pretty happy with how it went. The stand came in a few days later and was easy to assemble.
Time to get everything else setup and get some golf balls!
The basement toilet developed a water drip at the old house last week, with a bunch of water on the floor and in to the laundry room. The water line was one of the older ones, made from bent pipe and the drip was coming from the connector to the toilet tank. Fun!
I guess I didn’t take a picture after I got the linoleum removed. I took the toilet off and left a bunch of fans running overnight in both rooms. I started just after 7am, with several trips back home, and finally got out of there around 8pm. I had picked up a couple boxes of peel and stick tiles at Home Depot as well as all new toilet parts. It cost about $120.
Was back to the house around 7am for day two. Except for a couple quick errands and lunch, I worked nonstop putting in the new floor, reinstalling trim (plus a new toe kick), and putting the toilet back in. I finally left just after 4pm. Thankfully Brandi made several runs to get some tools I needed at our new house and pick up lunch.
The extra cost of the tiles at Home Depot was worth it because they’re much better quality than the ones from Family Dollar. For a rough basement bathroom, the floor is a nice upgrade and looks good.
My entire body was wrecked from crawling around on the cement floor for two days. We need the house to sell before there are any other surprise projects.
A week after moving in, Dad came down and we built a wall in the basement to close off the workshop and keep sawdust contained. I eventually finished the rest of the show side of the wall and added trim to the door.
The Cat6 cables and networking rack are a project I hope to tackle over the holidays.
In order to keep as much dust as possible in the shop, I bought a can of spray foam to fill gaps around pipes, ducts, and beams. Since I hade some large gaps, I had to do two applications. I used wider painter’s tape to hold the foam back (picture below was taken during round two).
Then I wired all of the shop outlets and put up OSB for my wall material. It was a cheap option at about $15 a sheet, while allowing me to screw lighter things anywhere. The first things to go on the wall were all of my Ryobi storage, since the tools had been scattered across the floor for weeks. I absolutely love the 10 foot foundation, which allowed me to put wood storage high and out of the way.
I put up my clamp racks and emptied a lot of boxes to organize my tool wall. The Allen key holder was a quick side project.
I had wanted a SawStop for years and the move seemed like good excuse to sell my old Craftsman table saw instead of hauling it to a new basement. I bought SawStop’s Contractor Saw with the 36” T-Glide Fence Assembly, Mobile Base, and Cast Iron Wings. She’s a beauty, a joy to use, and the safety features can’t be beat.
I had a general idea of the layout I was going for in the shop, but in order to get a feel for the space, I measured all of my carts and tools so I could model in SketchUp. I started with the structure, items on the main wall, and things that can’t be moved, like pipes and the shop sink.
Then I needed all of the tool and storage carts. I imported a lot of the items from SketchUp’s 3D Warehouse and scaled everything to the correct size.
Eventually I got to a comfortable arrangement in the model and could physically put things in place. Over the course of several weeks I made a lot of adjustments. I even moved my band saw over to the drill press cart so I could repurpose it’s cart for my planer. I think I ended with a very good first iteration. Here are comparisons of the model and the actual room.
I can start making things again! One of the first builds is going to be an outfeed/assembly table for the table saw. It’ll have some neat features and storage. In the models I made a table top of about the correct size and in real life you see my old table top, which is too small and low, on saw horses.
My wood storage got out of control. Something had to change.
First I wanted to build a lumber rack on the opposite wall of the room. I remembered watching John Heisz make a simple one on YouTube, so I followed what he did almost exactly. I already had plywood strips the correct width, so I chopped ten to 30″ long. Then I whipped up a simple tapering jig on the bandsaw to make quick work of cutting 20 arms out of old wood.
I ran the arms through the planer and rounded them on my router table. I also rounded the plywood edges because they were rough. After a lot of repetitive gluing and screwing, the pieces were assembled.
I drilled holes and preloaded all 60 screws to make it easier to put them on the wall.
I stacked two at every other stud and loaded it up!
It’s so nice to see what I have and be able to easily access everything. I didn’t expect it to be so full already though!
Next, I wanted a rolling lumber cart for sheet goods, off-cuts, and scraps. Doing a Google image search was a bit overwhelming, but I found inspiration from several styles:
I drew up some ideas. Since I already had the lumber rack on the wall, I kept reminding myself I didn’t need space to store long boards. Originally I was set on incorporating an old drawer in my design (first picture below), but it was too limiting. Some of my design choices were dictated by only wanting to use materials I already had.
Instead of doing a final plan in SketchUp I decided to wing it, giving myself flexibility through the build. I took full advantage too by changing several things along the way.
I had bought The Auto-Jig from Armor Tool a week before, which I’ve had my eye on for quite some time. It’s worth every penny and saved a ton of time.
One morning I built the base and cut most of the plywood pieces. Then I assembled almost all of the complicated half before attaching it to the base. On day two, the second side was much easier to assemble. I used the router along with some sanding to round the sharp edges. I slapped some castors on to make it mobile. The last task was making the drawers, which I put together with a nail gun and glue.
Finally it was time to load up the cart and organize everything. Big surprise, it ended up very full!
Sorting through all of the wood was a good opportunity to purge and I ended up with a big pile for the trash.
We got slammed with storms last night and about 20 gallons of water came in by one of the basement windows. Really glad all of my big tools are on castors.
Spent about 4 hours cleaning up water in the basement and cutting out carpet. Roughly 30 gallons was there before I caught it. Tested out my trough in the yard, so it should be good overnight.
Nick Momrik 