Can You Use a Golf Simulator Without an Enclosure?

Yes — you can absolutely use a golf simulator without an enclosure, and a large share of the setups I help customers build run exactly that way: a launch monitor, a decent hitting net, a mat, and a TV or iPad to the side showing the software. The enclosure-with-impact-screen build is the finished-article version, but it is not the entry requirement. What you cannot do is skip the thinking about safety and wall protection, because a golf ball leaving the face at 100mph+ indoors is completely unforgiving of optimism. In this guide I will cover how the net-based setup works, the protection realities I have learned from installs (and a couple of customer mishaps), and the honest point at which an enclosure and impact screen become worth the money.

The Net-Based Simulator: How It Actually Works

The setup is simple. The ball is struck from a mat into a golf net positioned 2–3m in front of you. The launch monitor — radar units like the Mevo Gen 2 sit behind the ball, camera units like the GC3S sit beside it — reads the club and ball over the first metre or so of flight and hands the numbers to your software. The net's only job is to stop the ball; it plays no part in the measurement. Your display goes wherever is safe and visible: most people wall-mount a TV to the side of the hitting area or stand an iPad on a shelf.

Everything the simulator does — full course play, carry distances, spin, dispersion — works identically to an enclosure setup. Radar-based monitors do like a bit of flight to work with, so give the ball as much room to the net as your space allows; camera-based units capture everything at the ball and are indifferent. The complete walkthrough of this style of build is in my net and cage simulator setup guide.

What you give up is the picture in front of you and the wraparound containment. The first is comfort; the second is safety, and it deserves its own section.

The Safety Realities Nobody Should Skip

I want to be direct about this because I have seen the aftermath when it goes wrong. An amateur driver swing sends the ball out at 130–150mph ball speed — FlightScope publish typical numbers on their site if you want the data — and even a wedge comes off the face fast enough to go through plasterboard. The failure cases with a standalone net are always the same three:

• The miss that never happens — until it does. A hosel strike or a thin toe shank can leave the face 30–40 degrees offline. A net that comfortably catches every straight shot does nothing about the one that goes sideways. One customer in Stockport put a 7-iron shank past the edge of a too-narrow net and through the plasterboard of his garage wall — the repair cost more than the side barriers that would have stopped it.
• Bounce-back. A net rigged too tight, or a ball catching a frame pole, can return the ball towards the player at genuinely dangerous speed. Quality nets are designed with baffle layers and the right tension to kill the ball dead; a sagging cheap net is a trampoline.
• Wear-through. Every net has a life measured in shots, and the impact zone wears first. After around 10,000 shots on the heavily used demo nets we tested, the archery-style netting was fine but budget single-layer nets showed visible thinning exactly where you would expect. Inspect the impact zone monthly and retire a net before daylight appears through it.

The Minimum Safe Setup Without an Enclosure

• A purpose-made golf net — not a football goal, not a tarpaulin. Our golf net range starts well under the price of one pane of double glazing.
• Width and height with margin: the net should be at least 3m wide and 2.5m high for a full-swing setup, positioned so even a wild miss still meets netting. Cage-style products with side returns — the Forza ProFlex pop-up cage is the quick-setup example — wrap the sides and solve most of the shank problem outright.
• Side protection for whatever is precious: windows, TVs, and the wall your other half cares about. Heavy curtains, foam mats or a secondary side net over glazing cost little. Position your side TV outside any conceivable ball line, ideally behind the plane of your shoulders.
• Nobody stands ahead of the mat, ever. Children and dogs treat a simulator as theatre; make the rule before the first swing, not after the first scare.

Set up like that, a net-based simulator is safe, proven and cheap. We installed a garage setup along these lines for a customer in Chester — ProFlex cage, side TV, £45 of foam matting over the window end — and two winters on, the walls are pristine and the netting has just been rotated for even wear.

Net-Only vs Enclosure: The Honest Comparison

When an Enclosure Becomes Worth It

The upgrade case is strongest when one of these becomes true:

• You are playing courses several times a week. At that usage, hitting into the projected fairway instead of glancing at a side TV transforms the experience, and the cost per session collapses.
• The room is permanent. An enclosure earns its keep when it never comes down. In a dedicated garage bay or garden room, the wraparound side barriers also end the wall-protection question for good.
• Other people use it. Families and mates' evenings gravitate to the big screen in a way they never do to a net and a tablet.
• You are already repairing walls. If your misses are finding the edges of a flat net, the maths has made the decision for you — I have twice had customers price up an enclosure immediately after a plastering quote.

The value route into a full enclosure is the SimBox enclosure — seven sizes to suit UK rooms, with side barriers included, at a fraction of custom-build prices. Pair it with a proper screen from our impact screens collection and a mid-range short-throw projector and the complete upgrade lands around the £1,000–£1,500 mark on top of a net-based setup. Whatever you do, only ever hit real balls into a purpose-made impact screen — bedsheets, banner material and general netting either fail or return the ball at you.

A Sensible Path: Start Without, Upgrade Deliberately

My standing advice to first-time buyers is to treat the enclosure as phase two. Phase one — launch monitor, mat, cage-style net, side display — gets you a fully working simulator for the least money and teaches you how you actually use it. If after a few months you are grumbling at the side screen, upgrade with confidence; the net redeploys to the garden as a practice cage, so nothing is wasted. If you find you mostly do range-style practice sessions, you have saved well over £1,000 and lost nothing that mattered to you. Either way you have avoided the worst outcome, which is a £2,000 enclosure assembled with great excitement in January and used as a clothes airer by June — a fate I have genuinely witnessed in a customer's garden room, though he has since rediscovered it.

For choosing the phase-one net itself — flat net versus cage, sizes, and which products hold up — my cage vs net guide covers it, and heavier-duty garden options like the steel-framed Forza cages double as outdoor practice bays in summer.

Frequently Asked Questions

Is it safe to hit full drivers into a net indoors?

Yes, with a quality purpose-made net that is properly sized, correctly tensioned and positioned with room behind it. The danger comes from undersized nets, worn impact zones and hard objects (frames, walls) within a shank's reach of the ball line. Add side containment or barriers if your room puts anything breakable within 30–40 degrees either side of the target line.

Will my launch monitor be less accurate without an impact screen?

No. The launch monitor measures the ball before it reaches the net or screen, so the numbers are identical. The one practical note is for radar units, which prefer a few metres of ball flight — position the net as far from the mat as the room allows, within the unit's guidance.

Can I add an enclosure later without replacing everything?

Yes, and it is the route I recommend. Launch monitor, mat and software all carry straight over. You are adding the enclosure, impact screen and projector; the net moves outdoors or becomes your travel setup. Check your ceiling height and depth against the enclosure size first — the room size guide on our blog covers the measurements.

What is the cheapest way to protect walls around a net setup?

Interlocking foam gym mats hung or fixed over the risk zones cost £30–£60 and absorb a direct strike without marking the wall. Heavy curtains over windows and a secondary offcut of netting draped at the net's edges cover the rest. It is unglamorous and it works — cheaper than one visit from a plasterer.