I’m seriously thinking of some kind of simulator set-up for the off-season. My garage is big enough for a net and high enough for a full swing for a driver, but I don’t have a lot of space behind me or for the ball to travel.
Is Skytrak still the best option with these limitations? I’ve only done a little reading up on options, but seems like the radar-based systems need the ball to travel a good distance to be able to track it.
@Jon reviewed the SC 300, and stated it works indoors, but you need about 15 feet or so of room. https://practical-golf.com/sc300-swing-caddie-review/ Others I’ve read, have had more issues.
I have the 200+, but I haven’t tried it indoors. Outdoors, it’s consistent on ball speed and swing speed. It’s not accurate on swing speed—it’s about 4-5 percent fast—but it’s consistently fast. Carry distance is a bit LOLtastic if your flight varies considerably with the same club. It’s, AFAIK, taking your ball speed, your club speed, and inputted loft, and interpolating a carry distance.
No spin data, and I’m not sure how much I’d trust the 300i’s spin numbers. OTOH, it doesn’t cost a house payment like the SkyTrak does.
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Do you have to get into the Skytrak price range to be able to see sideways dispersion and ball flight? That would probably be worth the extra money to me.
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Not sure, but I think so. That linked review for the 300 doesn’t mention dispersion, and I wouldn’t have a great deal of faith in its spin or launch angle data either.
No idea if the Mevo or Mevo+ measures dispersion. 2 grand buys a lot of range balls, but if you’ve got it (and I read of people with their own Trackman/Foresight GC: “Go you!”, I say.), why not?
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You are definitely looking at camera based options for the space you have. It all comes down to budget. Skytrack, GC2/Quad, and Uneekor would all work.
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I’ve had both the SC300 and SkyTrak. The SC300 is a great little unit and I still take it to the range with me since the SkyTrak doesn’t work all that well outdoors. The SC300 measures far fewer metrics and you won’t get dispersion or accurate spin numbers, but everything else it does it does well.
Bumping up to the SkyTrak has been awesome, though I wouldn’t spend money on the WGT simulated golf packages. It’s a waste as the apps are near impossible to get to work together.
The driving range and game improvement stuff that comes stock with the SkyTrak are phenomenal, though.
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With that space you’ll need camera-based. If Skytrak is in the budget, that’s going to be a good option. A small step up from there is the GC2; great unit that is built like a tank and lasts forever. Those are running for ~$4K right now on the secondhand market (all of the GC2s are used).
If you end up getting really into simulator golf, most folks who start with Skytrak will upgrade into a GC2 or Uneekor at some point.
I’m not familiar with the Skytrak software, but TGC 2019 is a great piece of software for practicing and playing; TGC 2019 is also compatible with GC2. If you can step up into a GC2, then that opens the door to GSPro, which is a fantastic option ($200/year or $500 lifetime).
There are some really fun online leagues that you can get into with a sim setup. Either individual play or team play. Lots of guys playing “pick up golf” on the sim as well (scrambles, two-man games, etc.) Nice community.
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I had my Skytrak setup in my garage over last winter and it worked great. I have a really tight space and to use my driver I have to position the net back a little bit extra so the club doesn’t hit the net on follow through. No problems with picking up the ball.
Skytrak does have a little bit of an issue with wedges at times.
It also has issues with high speed swings. I am right around 145-150 ball speed with driver and haven’t had a problem. I have read that moving the ball back from the laser dot helps. @Bigdadenergy was one on here. I also read about that when I was looking at purchasing. To me it was 2k well spent. Coming from the Monadnock region of NH, I need some kind of golf for the other 4-5 months per year.
I use the Rukket net, its way too big but its all I have. The SPG 7? net is 7x7 and much smaller. I am trying to convince myself to spend the money on ANOTHER net to save space, not happening yet tho.
edit: The Rukket needs a good amount of space behind it. I have pinged many balls off the handle of my snowblower and other things that are behind it. Does anyone have info on the amount of space behind the SPG needed? It looks like it stops the ball a lot faster than the Rukket.
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Thanks for the info. I think that’s the direction I’m going to head after seeing some of these replies. Yes, these winters in the northeast US are too long!
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(Pours another apple cider while nodding slowly in sad agreement)
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Sorry in advance, but a little long winded here.
I tried an Optishot for a season (winter) or 2. I was very skeptical of it’s accuracy. Jon’s review mimics many of my findings
https://practical-golf.com/optishot-2-review/
He really did a polite job not to bash it. All that being said, I still have a decent mat, putting rug, foam and real (for putting) balls & a 10’x8’ white tarp for winter practice. Gotta use a little imagination (us men are good at that 
) If I can visualize or have pics of a course, I can play it. Tee shot, approach, pitch/chip, putt.
Assorted old clubs, a Medicus, homemade Superspeed, etc., etc. Also a propane heater. Usually don’t fire that up unless I’m doing something else in garage.
Has it helped my game? Improved my scores? MEH!
It does keeps me from coming out of the 5 month layoff as rusty as a bolt from the Titanic.
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Garmin R10 if you have 6 feet of space behind the ball.
Well I got the green light from the wife to buy a SkyTrak. Question for those of you who have experience with one –
Mine is going to have to be a portable setup, as I don’t have a dedicated space where I could just leave it permanently. I currently hit balls into a net in my garage, so I’m not too worried about that part - it only takes me about 5 minutes or less to set up my mat and net. But does the unit have to re-calibrated or require a lot of tinkering every time you set it up?
Even though I’d love to get one, I’m kind of torn. I’ve got a couple places not too far away with simulators, one with Trackman and one with TruGolf. At about $40 for an hour at these places, it wouldn’t take too long for the Skytrak to pay for itself.
But my concerns are 1) will it take a long time to setup/take down every time?
2) are the simulation play packages any good/worth the money?
3) if I don’t get a simulator subscription, will I get bored just hitting balls on a virtual range?
Appreciate any opinions and experience on this. Thanks!
Nope, I bring my Skytrak in the house after every session. Easy to set up and use then you can view the software wirelessly on your phone or connect via USB to a laptop.
I do open the calibration every time to confirm the unit is level. Setup is probably 2-3 minutes, Max.
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Great! Thanks for the info.
Any experience with the simulation plans? From reading some other sites, sounded like TGC was pretty good? Does it require a high-end laptop to run?
I was also checking out the Bushnell Launch Pro and it says it requires a gaming PC. I’m hoping to run something off an iPad or small Windows laptop.
As of now I just use WGT that comes with the Play and Improve plan. It works pretty well on the iPad. I am thinking of beefing up to The Golf Club 2019 simulator software but that would require a gaming computer and the $900 lifetime license. Cons are the cost but pros are that then you can play multiplayer with friends (in person) and they have pretty much every course because people create them by hand.
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Nice setup, Spud, but it looks like your refrigerator is too far from the tee box🍻
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TGC is great but costs $1K. An option this is probably better right now is GSPro, which is $250 per year. It’s a little bit buggier than TGC, but the developers there actually work to make the game better (vs. TGC which is entirely static at this point). They’ve just implemented a SkyTrak integration, so it’s a good option. You will need some kind of a PC. The better the GPU, the better your graphics, but you can definitely play on less intensive settings without a high-end gaming PC.
I can’t find this mentioned on Skytrak’s or GS pro’s website?
Go to this Discord and check out the #skytrak-connection-help channel.
This is the most active spot to discuss GSPro. Lots of really helpful people. Also lots of fanboys that you’ll have to wade through 
If you don’t have a Discord account, you’ll likely need to set one up to join the server.
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