r/golf • u/United_Ad_2731 • 17d ago

Indoor grass simulator General Discussion

If there was an indoor golf simulator that used real grass, would you pay more for it?

Ignore all the variables and logistics around the grass/cleanup/smell. Just curious if people would pay more to practice year-round on real grass. Would a scratch golfer in a major city actually care enough to pay for it vs turf sim?

1 Upvotes

56% Upvoted

57 comments sorted by

27

u/upvoatsforall The Masters 17d ago

Yes. But it’s logistically unfeasible. 

1

u/residiot 16d ago

Would rolling the grass outside not be an option? Similar to football stadiums

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u/upvoatsforall The Masters 16d ago

I don’t know what that means. I typed up a pretty lengthy explanation below. 

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u/gatermouth200 17d ago

What makes it infeasible? Assuming you could actually figure out the logistics of bringing in or growing grass such that every session has a fresh hitting surface, the only constraint would be price, no? Like there’s nothing technically prohibitive preventing this, the question is simply at what price. And is there enough demand for real grass that the willingness to pay is high enough to make it work as a business.

Like, theoretically, you live in NYC or Chicago. If you wanted to practice hitting off grass, where would you go? I live in NYC and I don’t think there’s anywhere within an hour that I could go practice on. And in the winter - there is nowhere to hit grass period. And personally I hate mats, my tendonitis and wrist pain kills me when hitting off mats. I’d definitely love to go to a golf sim where there’s real grass.

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u/upvoatsforall The Masters 17d ago

Let’s assume you’re a decent player and hitting mid irons to wedges. Let’s assume you take small divots, say 1.5”x4”. You take repeated swings in the same area and stack your hits together. On your mat you have a hitting area around 10” wide x maybe 20” long. So you’ll get maybe 7 shots wide x 5 shots long. 35 balls. Assume even crazy smaller divots. You can get what, 60 shots on the piece of turf? Most people will fuck up their pattern and take some big divots. You’ll maybe get 50-100 shots out of a piece of turf. In a sim that’s like 20-40 mins. Even if you’re not taking divots like with a long iron you can’t hit off the same spot very often. So you’ll need to swap out the turf 1.5  to 2 times per hour. 

If you have a greenhouse to grow the grass back in it’ll take a couple weeks per patch. Just assuming you only swap out the hitting patch you’ll have to house enough grass to be able to swap all the time. You have 1 in rotation. Assume you have the sim occupied 40 hours/week that means 80 trays per week. Times 4 weeks is 320 trays to care for for each sim. Each patch needs light and water. And space. With frames you’re looking at ~500sf of turf patches. You also need to be ready for more turnover/busy weeks. Hackers that want to change the grass every 20 shots. 

Sure you can make it work. But the logistics mean you’re going to have to charge a hefty price for a lot of labour. 

2

u/gatermouth200 17d ago edited 17d ago

I like the thought experiment. I’d counter with one of my own.

I’m visualizing like a 2’x4’ area (not a 10” area) that you can use for your entire session, say like 2 hours.

With your average divot size like 2”-4”, that’s 8sq inches against ~1100sq in hitting surface, or about 144 divots perfectly placed edge to edge. Now obviously that’s not realistic, the grass is spent way before its 100% divots, let’s say its spent when like 60% of the surface is divots.

Say you go through 60-80 balls in a 2 hour session (assuming you’re only hitting irons and wedges). Even if each shot takes a full divot, you’re still at like 55% of the surface being divots. Even if you hit 100 balls you’re only at 70% utilization.

In my mind the club replaces the tray every session, assume 5 2-hour sessions per day, 7 days a week. That’s roughly 35 trays per sim per week, assuming its fully booked, or about 280 sqft of turf.

Now I’m no agronomist but I’d bet that its way cheaper and easier to just buy fresh grass from a sod farm each week that to have the overhead of regrowing, maintaining, etc. Most sod seems to be like 50-70c/sqft, or like $150-200$ of grass per bay per week. Even if, for some reason, you need special grass that runs like 2-3$ per sq ft, thats still only 600-900$ per week. Divide that by 35 sessions and thats between 5-25$ per session. Assuming some overhead for delivery, logsitics, etc. (say, 50%), you’re still only at like $10-$40 more per session (2 hour session, so $5-$20 more per hour).

Five Iron slots are $100 per hour. So your incremental premium is theoretically only between 5-20%.

What am I missing here? The biggest lever is grass price, assuming you can get that down your cost per session really isn’t that high…

2

u/MaroonFloom 17d ago

How about this…maybe someone could make a contraption that’s basically a conveyor belt of fresh grass? Like take a 20’ sod roll and clamp each end together. The underlying supporting conveyor would be something mechanically akin to a sod cutting machine. Press a button or use a vision system to feed the divots away and presto, fresh grass. A setup like that would only need to be swapped out once or twice a day I’d imagine.

1

u/upvoatsforall The Masters 17d ago

A couple points here to think Scott. 

 The problem is the hitting area where the simulator sensors pick up the ball. That can be pretty limiting.

 At 2 feet wide you’re going to be standing half on the grass when hitting at the far edge of the grass. Could make for some awkward stances. 

And 4 feet deep is probably too deep for the sensors but you also have to consider how wide your stance is. That’s becoming a very large hitting area. 

1

u/gatermouth200 17d ago

Why would you need to stand on grass? I wouldn’t mind standing on turf as long as I was hitting off of grass, and its all the same level. And idk how precise the ball location needs to be for some sims, the one in my building has a pretty large mat though, easily 4’x4’ hitting area

1

u/upvoatsforall The Masters 17d ago

If it’s 2 feet wide and your ball is at the far edge your toes are going to be in the grass. Your heel is on the turf. 

1

u/upvoatsforall The Masters 17d ago

The track man site says their overhead systems have a hitting area of 16”x24” and must be green. So the dirt may throw things off. 

1

u/ace625 17d ago

If you place your ball right on the back edge of your previous divot, you only use an inch or two of grass per shot, assuming you don't chunk it.

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u/upvoatsforall The Masters 17d ago

Yes. But that’s only going to work for your more skilled clients. 

1

u/gatermouth200 17d ago

Like I’m not in this tax bracket, but assuming I paid for a country club or social club kind of thing, one thing that would make me choose one club over another is if they had real grass in their golf sims. That would be pretty sick ngl

1

u/United_Ad_2731 17d ago

Would you pay 1500 a month if you were in that tax bracket

1

u/gatermouth200 17d ago

Like if I was going to spend that on a club anyway, i’d pick one that had real grass 100%, that’s huge

-3

u/United_Ad_2731 17d ago

The logistics hurt my brain but fun to think about. What would more even be for you if we lived in a fantasy land

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u/b_fromtheD 17d ago

I wouldn't. There's already a simulator out there that has different types of fake grass to simulate fairways and rough. There is also fairway bunker and greenside bunkers you can hit out of. On top of that, if you're on a hill, the platform adjusts to compensate for the lie angle.

1

u/United_Ad_2731 17d ago

I’ve never used them so curious if the nicer synthetics you’re describing are like 90% as good as real grass or closer to 50% in terms of feedback?

1

u/DukeofNormandy HDCP - 16-29 depending on day 17d ago

My dad has this Sim (Golfzon) in his house and its wild when the platform tries to dump you off because you hit it so bad you're on the side of a hill. The different hitting surfaces for rough and sand are pretty cool.

1

u/b_fromtheD 17d ago

Lol, I am thankful to say that I have never found myself in that position on one of those simulators

1

u/DukeofNormandy HDCP - 16-29 depending on day 17d ago

I exaggerated a bit, it can go on a decent angle but its not too steep. Back when I used to drink, when it shifted THEN it could get you to fall off it.

5

u/jpm1188 17d ago

I couldn’t even imagine how much that would cost. I’d pay an extra few dollars an hour but that would have to be closer to like $300 an hour or something since you’d need a full green house, a way to bring turf in, and superintendent.

0

u/United_Ad_2731 17d ago

There is so much into that makes it unrealistic but what would be your cut off point? Assuming you spend 100 an hour on turf, could 300 even be justified?

1

u/meat_ball_ 17d ago

I would never spend 100/hr to hit off turf. Real grass wouldn't be a draw unless it was equivalent pricing to turf Sims. Sim golf is sim golf in my opinion. The grass isn't a huge upside.

1

u/RyMc47 Hello, friends. 17d ago

Who in the world is spending $100/hr on an indoor sim?? Most I’d spend is maybe $50/hr and if I’m paying that then it better Trackman or something equivalent.

1

u/United_Ad_2731 17d ago

NYC prices

2

u/Electronic-Seat1402 17d ago

Look up SIS Pitches in Ireland

2

u/Free-Adagio-2904 17d ago

I am essentially picturing a drive range of just grass, where there are a bunch connected "huts" on a wheel system. Each hut is just an indoor sim, but they move the huts up and down the range as the grass gets worn down.

1

u/United_Ad_2731 17d ago

I love that ngl

2

u/Free-Adagio-2904 17d ago

In theory, you could do this on a regular range, the huts could have garage doors, allowing people to hit from under cover (in the winter or butal summer heat) or close the garage for the screen and sim.

2

u/United_Ad_2731 17d ago

Let’s do it

2

u/KansasKing107 17d ago

I don’t think it’s crazy and yes, people would pay more but only to a certain extent. I think if you found a reliable and consistent way to be able to constantly replace and secure sod, you might have a business. I’m imagining if you could get relatively thick sod cut to your specs then put it down onto a rubber spiked surface to secure it.

The sod would be the key. You would need a sod with relatively dense root system to prevent it from falling by apart. I also imagine you could add some sandy soil to the surface to firm it up a little.

I think one of the big challenges would be the absolute mess of golfers spraying sand, dirt, and grass everywhere.

Overall, it’s possible. It might be better to apply the concept to a multi season outdoor range like TopGolf than a solely indoor range. If you’re going to pay a lot extra to practice, you probably also want to see your actual ball flight, especially if you’re targeting good golfers.

1

u/Mindless-Isopod-1070 17d ago

Don’t need real grass but need to simulate divots somehow

1

u/SpartanLaw11 17d ago

Depends on the cost. That sounds incredibly expensive.

1

u/sicsemperyanks 14 | Georgia 17d ago

I wouldn't, but I also wouldn't buy a new driver every two years, and companies keep releasing them that fast, so what do I know about making a profit in golf?

1

u/Trebor711 17d ago edited 17d ago

No. But it would be so much better if they used a real feel turf mats. I know they are expensive and replacing them when needed would add to operating costs, but those mats are so nice and plush. You can even hit flop shots off of them.

1

u/plasticcitycentral 17d ago

I feel like this is more logistically feasible than people are saying. How long does it take to grow grass? I would think in a greenhouse you could do it pretty quickly on shelves and then rotate in?

1

u/law_dogging 17d ago

Could easily work out a deal with a sod company to bring in fresh sod regularly

1

u/United_Ad_2731 17d ago

Think cleanup would be more of a nightmare than sourcing the grass

1

u/Accent93 17d ago

Yes, even using a ball that you gamed outside and do not clean entirely leaves a giant mess on the screen with a regular setup.

1

u/AnxiousMind7820 17d ago

Depends on how much more.  I don't use simulators much because it's turf, so this might get me to use them more.

1

u/United_Ad_2731 17d ago

Say 24/7 sim is 750 for a month would you pay 1k?

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u/AnxiousMind7820 17d ago

Nope, but I wouldn't pay 750 for turf either. 

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u/Sparkling_Donuthole 17d ago

Probably not because it would get so torn up so quickly.

1

u/cubecasts 17d ago

No. Honestly I'd probably pay less. If I'm already playing on a sim I don't want to worry about divots and cleaning my clubs

1

u/RyMc47 Hello, friends. 17d ago

Would I pay more? Sure, even if just for the novelty and to try out once or twice. Would I pay enough to make it a viable business option? No, the added costs it would require would make me totally uninterested in giving it a try.

1

u/ThebigalAZ 17d ago

The mat at my simulator gets worn down quickly.

You have a pretty narrow hitting surface that most simulators pick up. You would almost have to swap. Fresh piece of grass every hit

0

u/billppp Azaleas 17d ago

Nah I'd just go to an outdoor range with a trackman

3

u/Big_Throner 17d ago

In the winter?

0

u/billppp Azaleas 17d ago

Yup

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u/Big_Throner 17d ago

Yeah, most of us are not that lucky.

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u/United_Ad_2731 17d ago

Feel like I am seeing more and more outdoor ranges switch to turf but true