Two ways to finish the bay — Option A and Option B

Option A — the putting green finish. The bay surface around the hitting station is laid with Putting Green Pro turf (13mm) with two regulation hole cups sunk in, sized to your bay. This is the full copy of the setup: short game station built into the ground, not rolled out of a bag. We supply the turf and cups — price TBC, confirmed with the base spec once the bay is measured up; your landscaper lays them as part of the base job.

Option B — the bark finish. Same sub-base, surfaced with bark from your landscaper instead. It's the lowest-cost route, still completely mud-free — and the putting green can drop in any time later without touching the cage or the base.

My honest steer

The R50 is the unit your setup deserves and the one that makes the cage a place the whole family actually uses — self-contained, weather-happy, no phone propped against a bag. But I'd be doing you a disservice not to say it plainly: if the budget conversation gets hard, the R10 at £489 does 80% of the job for 11% of the money, and nothing else in the foundation ever needs changing. You can start on the R10 this month and trade up to the R50 next season with zero waste.

Straight onto grass, a wooden frame, or dug in?

The prepared bay, for you specifically — with the honest version of why. It won't make the cage dramatically lower: the frame beds about 75mm into the finished base, and that's the whole height saving. What it does do is answer your other two worries completely — MOT Type 2 stone drains straight through, so there's no January mudbath where the divots used to be, and a compacted, level base is the best footing the frame can have. On the hedge question, the real decision is what not to build: a raised wooden platform solves the mud but lifts the whole cage another 30cm or more over the hedge — it's the only choice here that makes the sightline worse. And plain grass with U-pegs is a perfectly good way to start, just not a great place to finish.

Is there a 2.5m cage so it sits lower?

There isn't — and honestly, there shouldn't be. A driver at full speed arcs higher than feels intuitive, and 50cm off the roof turns every full swing into a hesitant one, which defeats the point of owning a range. The 3m height is the safety margin that lets you (and the kids, as they grow into it) swing without a single thought. The bay build at least guarantees it never sits a centimetre higher than it has to — and the dark netting does more for the hedge view than any height tweak would.

Which turf takes a regular tee peg — and can it run wider?

The FORZA Ultra All Turf mat in your foundation: 35mm-deep turf that holds a normal wooden tee exactly like a fairway does — no rubber-tee compromise. It's on the Pro Jigsaw rubber base because a big session on a hard mat is where sore backs come from; the base takes the shock so your joints don't. And yes — the same turf can be custom-cut as a wider roll across the bay. Tell me the width you're picturing and I'll price it.

Does the launch monitor actually fit inside a 3m cage?

Placement is the spec nobody prints, so it's on every card above. Short version: the R50 sits about 60cm behind the ball — it practically disappears inside the cage, which is a big part of why I rate it for this build. The LM1 needs ~1.5m; easy. The radar units (R10, Mevo) want ~2m or more behind the ball, which works with the mat set forward but is the snuggest arrangement. For the iPad: it clamps to the 42mm frame with a standard tablet tube-mount — about £25, and I'll send you the exact one I'd use with your order.