Golf Net Cage for Simulator Setup: A Builder's Guide

The question lands in my inbox most weeks, usually from someone standing in a cold garage with a net cage already bolted together: "Can I just point a projector at this and call it a simulator?" I get why people ask. The frame is already there, the net stops the ball, it feels like you are one HDMI cable away from playing Pebble Beach. The honest answer is that you are close, but the back of a net cage is a net, and a net is the one surface a simulator does not want. Get that one thing right and the rest of the build is straightforward. Get it wrong and you spend £1,500 to project a blurry, sagging image onto a wall of rope.

I supply these setups for real UK garages, garden rooms and spare bedrooms, so this guide is written from the frame outwards: what a net cage gives you, the part that has to change, and the two routes that genuinely work.

What a net cage gives you, and what it doesn't

A golf practice cage is a brilliant bit of kit for the job it was built for. It gives you a rigid frame, an enclosed ball-stop, and a defined space to swing a driver flat out without putting one through the garage door. For pure launch-monitor practice, a cage is all you need. Our own Pro Golf Cage & Hitting Mat Bundle lands at £734.99 with a tour-density mat included, and it will take a driver all day.

The trouble starts when you want a projected image. A projector needs a flat, tensioned surface to throw onto, and it needs the ball to hit that surface flush and quiet. A cage net does neither. It sags, it has gaps in the weave that swallow light, and the ball bounces off it with a slap rather than a soft thud. So "net cage for a simulator" almost never means projecting straight onto the net. It means one of two things: hanging a proper impact screen inside your cage frame, or stepping up to a purpose-built enclosure that already has one.

The two routes that actually work

Route A: add an impact screen to a cage frame

If you already own a cage, or you want the cheapest way in, you keep the frame and hang a dedicated impact screen against the back. A frame-and-net-only cage like the FORB 3m Golf Practice Cage is £459.99, and you tension a screen inside it. On the screen itself you have three sensible options depending on budget and how much projecting you plan to do:

• SimSpace Elite Impact Screen — £199.99, the honest entry point for a cage build.
• Close Knit Baffle Impact Screen — £236, tighter weave, quieter, softer bounce-back.
• SimSpace Platinum Impact Screen — £399.99, the one I hang when image quality is the priority.

The catch with Route A is tensioning. A screen only looks good and lasts if it is pulled genuinely flat, and a standard cage frame is not designed with screen mounting points. You will be improvising with bungees and eyelets, and a loosely hung screen gives you a wobbly image and a much shorter screen life.

Route B: a purpose-built enclosure

The second route skips the compromise. A purpose-built enclosure gives you the frame, the surround padding and a properly tensioned screen designed as one system. The SimSpace Sim 5 Enclosure is a 3m × 3m × 3m unit at £1,299.01, and the SimSpace UltraMAX Enclosure at £1,499.99 uses a high-contrast grey screen that lifts projected images noticeably in a bright room. The image is cleaner, the ball is quieter, and there is no fighting with bungee cords at 9pm.

My rule of thumb: if projection quality genuinely matters to you, go straight to an enclosure. If your setup is mostly launch-monitor work with the odd round of sim golf, a cage frame plus a good screen does the job for a lot less money.

Your launch monitor decides the geometry

Before you order anything, work out which launch monitor you are running, because it dictates how deep your space has to be. There are two families, and they sit in completely different places.

Radar units read the ball in flight, so they sit behind you and need room to see the ball travel. The FlightScope Mevo Gen2 (£1,199) and the budget Garmin Approach R10 (£421) both want roughly 2.4m of clear space behind the ball. In a 3m-deep cage, that behind-the-ball requirement eats most of your standing room.

Camera units read the ball off the face, so they sit to the side of the ball, roughly 0.6m away, and need almost no depth behind you. The Foresight GC3 (£7,500), the Garmin Approach® R50 (£4,299) and the Uneekor Eye Mini (£2,999) all fit a shallow cage far more comfortably. If your garage is short front-to-back, a camera unit is not a luxury, it is the thing that makes the build possible.

The impact screen, the part people skimp on

People happily spend four grand on a launch monitor and then try to save fifty quid on the screen, and it shows in every session. The screen is what you actually look at, and it is what absorbs a driver at full speed. A 3m cage takes a screen around 2.4m to 2.7m wide, hung with at least 1.8m of usable height. Whatever you pick, tension it hard and flat. A slack screen distorts the image, drums loudly on impact and wears out fast. If you are going the cage-plus-screen route, the Close Knit Baffle at £236 is the sweet spot for most people: tight enough to project cleanly, dense enough to knock the noise down.

Projector, PC and software

You front-project, meaning the projector is mounted overhead and throws onto the screen from above, with the ball travelling away from it. For an indoor garage or room, aim for at least 3,000 lumens and 1080p; a short-throw projector saves you a lot of grief in a tight space. Because the projector faces the screen and the ball flies away from it, damage is rare, but nudging it slightly off the ball line buys peace of mind.

The image comes off a PC. You do not need a monster, but integrated graphics will not cut it for GSPro or E6 Connect. Our Golf Simulator Gaming Laptop (Sim-Spec) is built and tested for exactly this at £1,750, so you are not gambling on whether the machine will keep up. On software, the common choices are GSPro, E6 Connect and Awesome Golf — some come bundled with a launch monitor, others are a subscription or one-off. Check what ships with your unit before you pay twice.

What it actually costs to build

Here is a realistic component picture using kit we actually sell, rather than optimistic internet numbers.

Realistically a budget cage-plus-screen build with an R10 lands around £2,500 to £3,500 all in, and a camera-based enclosure setup climbs to £6,000 to £8,000. Where you land is decided almost entirely by the launch monitor.

The shortcut: a matched package

If pairing an enclosure, mat and launch monitor yourself sounds like admin, we sell them pre-matched so the geometry and connections are already sorted. The Mevo Gen2 Full Package is £4,490, the GC3 Full Package from £9,990, the Garmin Approach® R50 golf simulator package £7,337.98 and the Eye Mini Full Package £5,690. Each one gives you the enclosure, screen and mat that suit that specific unit, which removes the two mistakes I see most: a radar unit crammed into a space too shallow for it, and a bargain screen ruining a premium launch monitor.

My honest recommendation

If you already own a net cage and you mostly want to practise with the odd sim round, keep the frame, hang a Close Knit Baffle screen inside it and run a Mevo Gen2 if you have the depth or a GC3 if you don't. That is the best value path and it works. If you are building from scratch and you want the image to look genuinely good every time you switch it on, skip the improvised screen entirely and start with a SimSpace enclosure, then choose your launch monitor by how deep your room is: camera unit for a shallow space, radar for a long one. Do not buy the launch monitor last and hope it fits — measure the room first, then let the geometry pick the monitor.

Frequently asked questions

Can I project straight onto a net cage?

Not well. A cage net sags and has gaps in the weave, so the image comes out blurry and dim, and the ball slaps off it loudly. For a projected simulator you hang a tensioned impact screen inside the cage frame, or use a purpose-built enclosure that already has one.

What size net cage do I need for a simulator?

A 3m × 3m × 3m footprint is the practical minimum. It takes a screen around 2.4m to 2.7m wide, gives overhead clearance for a full driver swing, and leaves room for front projection. Just remember that a radar launch monitor needs roughly 2.4m behind the ball on top of that.

Do I need a PC for a cage simulator?

For a projected setup, yes. Integrated laptop graphics will struggle with GSPro or E6 Connect, so a sim-spec machine like ours at £1,750 is the safe route. An all-in-one launch monitor with its own screen, such as the Garmin Approach® R50, is the exception if you would rather avoid a separate PC.

Will a golf ball damage the projector?

It is unlikely. The projector is mounted overhead facing the screen, and the ball travels away from it toward the screen. Positioning the projector slightly off the direct ball line adds a margin of safety for the odd shank.

Is a cage simulator as good as a commercial bay?

The launch monitor and software are the same, so the data and the golf are genuinely comparable. What commercial bays buy you is a bigger screen, controlled lighting and climate. In a home cage you control those things yourself, which is exactly why a flat, well-tensioned screen and a bright projector matter so much.