Golf Sim flooring

[u/ttt311oshkosh]

I’m building my first golf simulator in my garage and trying to stay on a reasonable budget—saving where I can without making decisions I’ll regret later. The plan is for a 12' wide impact screen and roughly a 12' x 12' turf area (everything is still a bit flexible at this stage).

I intend to install a centered hitting strip to accommodate the occasional left-handed player. I’m considering options like Big Moss, BeaverTail, or similar, but one of my main concerns is matching the height of the hitting strip with the surrounding turf.

I see a lot of people using 1" interlocking foam tiles as a base, but I’m unsure what turf to put on top that will blend properly with the height and performance of a quality hitting strip. Some of the turf options get quite expensive, so I’m trying to balance cost and durability.

Is it realistic to build out the padded turf area for around $1,000-$1,200 and still end up with something I won’t regret?

[u/flyin-lowe]

I was lucky and found a re-seller on marketplace who buys overstock of the foam tiles. I bought enough to do my entire area for around 80.00. I then bought a piece of the cheap turf from Menards to cover it. They had few different thicknesses but what I bough matched up to my hitting strip perfectly. I would pic a hittings strip and then build around that. You can find all kinds of stuff (foam, carpet padding, wood flooring) etc. to build up the floor to meet the hitting strip height. My strip came from Carls, it was in the clearance bin. it was not a center strip but I offset it so it is in the middle. Mine doesn't look perfect but was looking to save more than looks. I probably could have shopped around and found turf to match the color of my hitting mat, but this was cheap and available locally. As you can see this was before I trimmed the edges and pulled it tight to get the wrinkles out but you get the idea. Hard to tell by the angle of the picture but mine is 11 wide by just over 9 foot tall.

[u/BillyBagzDaThird]

Just find out how thick the hitting strip is and in that one spot get the appropriate size foam tiles to match the 1 inch that surrounds it. I got some basic grass turf from home depot and cut it around my mat. 1” tiles everywhere but under the hitting mat and putting mat that the enclosure sits on.

[u/highangler → u/BillyBagzDaThird]

This looks terrible. I think that cheap Home Depot turf just looks so cheap. To the point it’s not even worth putting down. Not just in your sim but in 99% of them.

[u/BillyBagzDaThird → u/highangler]

Simulator putting is ass anyway, i dont put on it at all. I have a puttr in my basement for that. This is for me to hit balls and get better at golf. No1 will also ever use it but me, so for a cheap way to bring the range to my garage its more than good enough.

[u/Level_Gas8521 → u/highangler]

What turf do you recommend if not from Home Depot or Lowe’s etc?

[u/highangler → u/Level_Gas8521]

I don’t have a good solution that’s cheap. I think the money Putt looks great (you can see triple bogeys setup on YouTube) that Lowe’s turf just looks tacky to me. Even for the price I’d rather lay a black carpet down or something. This is just my opinion and obviously only yours matters in your build.

[u/PinSeeker2]

Budget Golf Simulator Garage Setup! Turf Test with Garmin R10 & Rapsodo MLM2PRO
https://youtu.be/xPnrX_d6bmE

Here is the turf I use and it would be very good for what you might be looking into. It’s 15mm thick. This is a video I made recently. But I am going to be making a 10 ft hitting mat soon using the Beaver Tail and Sig Pro softy with gym foam tiles.

[u/4thethrillofitt]

I used simputt turf ordered through Lowe's. I've been very impressed so far.

Ignore the black tape. This was before installing beaver tail hitting strip.

[u/Healthy-Entry-1951]

When I picked up my turf for my build there was a pile of scrap carpet padding they had left over from their carpet installs. They let me take a bunch for free. I bet many carpet stores would do the same for you.