Your Garage Golf Bay — Prepared for Chris

Prepared for Chris · August 2026 · Updated with the final width verdict

The full picture — bay, tech, flooring, every price

Your 4m bay, specced end to end — with the straight answer on the driver.

Everything from our conversation is in here: the 4m partition so the storage (and the peace) survives, camera-based tech chosen for swing improvement rather than just fun rounds, flooring over the bare concrete, and the frame plan for your builder. We supply every component; your builder fits it. The headline: as an irons and wedges simulator this room is outstanding, and the kit lands well inside budget. The one thing 2.7m of width honestly cannot give you is a full driver swing indoors — the verdict and the maths are below, in full.

The room, revised

4m of sim, 2.4m of storage — the window stays safe

change the rafter above the swing — your instinct is right +60cm to the apex where the club actually travels Screen wall · 2.6m foam backing + pelmet + side padding mat · ball ~2.6m from screen window (behind you — safe) partition 2.4m storage door end · domestic harmony 4.0m sim bay 2.5m to rafters
Side view. Screen on the block wall, partition at 4m, storage behind it at the big-door end. The window sits roughly above where you stand — effectively impossible to hit.
4m bay — confirmed workable
Ball ~2.6m from screen — depth was never the problem · plenty of room for full swings with every scoring club; the driver question is a width question, answered below
Your camera-based call
Exactly right · at 4m, radar units (which sit behind the ball) are out; camera systems — beside the ball or mounted overhead — are built for rooms like yours
One rafter changed
Still the right call · raise or re-position above the swing zone rather than cut out — it buys comfortable headroom for full iron swings. (Height was fixable; width, below, is not)
Floor
Bare concrete → cushioned floor · interlocking underlay across the bay: joint protection, quieter, and warm enough for January sessions
The width verdict — final, supplier-confirmed

2.7m won't take a driver. We checked everything, and we won't pretend otherwise.

Your maths, confirmed

A driver swing needs ~2.25m from the ball to the wall behind your back. In 2.7m of width that forces the ball to ~45cm from the right wall — and with the screen's trim pad and bungees taking 15–20cm off that side, you'd have roughly 30cm of screen to hit into. Every simulation aim point lands in that corner; the natural response is pulling shots toward the big safe part of the screen. That's a bay that trains a fault.

We took it to our supplier's design team

Angled hitting lines, offset positions, software aim tricks — all of it was examined. Their verdict is the same as the geometry's: at 2.7m wide there is no workaround, apart from making the space larger. We'd rather tell you that plainly than sell you a compromise dressed as a solution.

What this room IS brilliant at

Everything from lob wedge to the long irons and hybrids — the clubs that actually build handicaps. Shorter clubs need less room behind you, so the ball moves toward the centre of the screen and the geometry problem dissolves. The camera launch monitors in this quote are at their absolute best with scoring clubs: spin, strike location, face data, wedge distance calibration. An irons-and-wedges sim used four nights a week beats a driver-capable one used twice a month — and your driver keeps its range sessions.

Your two honest paths

Path 1 — build the scoring-club sim (our recommendation): the quote below is unchanged; nothing in it is driver-specific. Path 2 — make the space larger: if a structural widening of the garage is ever on the table, indoor driver comes back on it — but that's a building conversation, not a simulator one. If an indoor driver swing is non-negotiable for you, say so and we'll tell you straight that this room can't deliver it — we'd rather lose the sale than build you a fault factory.

screen · trim + bungees take 15–20cm each side ≈30cm of screen to hit into ball · 45cm off the wall you 2.25m needed behind your back — this is what pins the ball to the wall 2.7m
Plan view, supplier-confirmed. Driver clearance behind you pins the ball 45cm off the right wall, leaving ~30cm of usable screen. No angle or software setting changes this geometry — shorter clubs shift the ball toward centre and the problem dissolves.
The finalised spec — engineered with our supplier

The build, validated line by line

We put the full specification through our supplier's engineering review, and it came back better: a tournament-grade screen, a 4K laser projector, a dedicated tee-insert winter mat, protection sized properly to your room — and GSPro course software included for year one. Everything below is shared by both options and none of it is driver-specific — the bay is built for the scoring clubs, and the launch monitor is the only decision left.

Component Price
Pro+ tournament impact screen — 2500mm × 2400mm the flagship screen grade, cut to your frame: pin-sharp 4K picture, whisper-quiet strike £815.00
Foam pelmet kit — 2700mm × 2500mm frames the full wall edge-to-edge, hides every fixing £370.00
Screen fixing bungees tensions the screen to your builder's timber frame £19.99
Foam bevelled protection tiles — 7 packs, 50cm × 50cm, run 2m deep walls and ceiling protected for the full 2m strike zone around the screen — skied wedges included £980.00
Nylon winter insert-tee hitting mat — 1.5m × 1.5m takes a real tee, built for daily indoor volume £329.00
Foam underlay — 3m × 4m cushions the whole bay over the bare concrete £255.00
Putting turf surround — 3m × 4m a real putting surface wall-to-wall around the hitting station £432.00
BenQ AK700ST 4K laser projector the step up from full HD — 4K on your new screen, laser-driven, no lamp changes £2,374.00
Projector ceiling mount fixes to a rafter, clear of the swing and the putting surface £39.90
Gaming PC — sim spec drives GSPro and the 4K projector; lives on a shelf at the bay £1,790.00
4K HDMI cable full-bandwidth run from PC to projector £29.99
GSPro course software — year one included the realism benchmark: 200,000+ community-built courses, the software serious home simmers choose £250.00
Shared build total £7,684.88
  • Builder's scope (excluded): rafter change, 4m stud partition, screen-wall timber frame to our dimensions, power to the ceiling projector position and a double socket at the bay.
  • One consolidated delivery to Epping; we brief your builder on frame dimensions and fixing points, and remote-guide the tech setup.
The decision

Two launch monitors, two complete builds — both well inside £20k

THE SMART MONEY

Uneekor Eye Mini

Side-placed cameras · £2,999.00

Full club data — path, face, attack angle — plus impact video replay: watch your club meet the ball frame by frame
Sits beside the mat, portable if you ever want it elsewhere
Saves £3,241 against the VX for data that's excellent rather than exhaustive
Complete build, delivered
£10,683.88
leaves £9,316 of your £20k for the builder

How to choose between them

Both are serious, accurate camera systems running the same GSPro software on the same 4K screen — you're choosing an experience, not a compromise. If the appeal of a completely clear floor and a built-in-from-day-one feel wins, it's the VX — and your rafter work makes the overhead install unusually straightforward. If you'd rather bank £3,241 against the building work and get impact-video replay of your strikes, the Eye Mini build is outstanding value. Either way the whole project — builder included — lands comfortably inside your number.

Next step: your builder's quote, then pick your build

Get your builder's price for the rafter, partition and frame, and put us in touch — we'll confirm frame dimensions and lock the order the same day. One delivery, builder fits, we guide the tech setup. From builder's nod to first round on GSPro is typically two to three weeks.

Prepared by Tom Hayward · OpenGolfer · tom@opengolfer.co.uk · Prices verified August 2026, subject to our standard terms and supplier availability. Free UK delivery.