Private houses · Troon, South Ayrshire

Golf simulator, Troon: SkyTrak, Epson projection and a 4.5 metre screen in a home annexe

Our client lives a walk from a golf course in Troon and cannot play for a third of the year because of the weather. Lairds built him a simulator in the annexe of his house: a 4.5 by 2.2 metre screen and frame, SkyTrak launch monitor, a custom PC, an Epson projector and a tee mat and turf chosen by hand.

Client

Private client, Troon

Site

Annexe of a private house, Troon

Scope

Simulator design, sourcing, testing, installation and calibration

Screen

4.5 m wide by 2.2 m tall

The brief

Troon is famous for golf: Royal Troon hosted The Open in 2016, and the game is part of the town’s identity. It is also known for rain, sea wind and short winter days, so for most people golf all year round is not possible. Our client, a keen golfer living within walking distance of a course, wanted to play whatever the weather. The annexe of his house was the space.

Two of our technicians led the project from research to handover, with our IT specialist on the computer and a joiner we work with regularly on site.

What we designed

The frame and screen came from Golf Swing Systems, sized to the room at 4.5 metres wide by 2.2 metres tall. The turf was chosen after testing dozens of samples against each other for a texture like a real green, and the tee mat is a FORB Golf pad with built-in tees. The simulator runs on SkyTrak, a launch monitor with laser tracking that reads the shot accurately enough to close the gap between virtual and physical golf, and lets the client download courses from around the world.

SkyTrak can run on an iPad, but we specified a custom PC with an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 and an Intel Core i5 10400F so that it runs at full performance in 4K and can be upgraded for years. The projector is an Epson EB-2250U, a model we have used before, with a 16:10 throw ratio that fits the screen. Everything was assembled and tested in our own office first, to calibrate the SkyTrak and to work out the projector’s height and distance so there are no shadows on the screen from the player.

On site, the projector’s intended ceiling position turned out to be where the back wall stood, so our joiner built a platform into the back wall for it instead. The PC lives in a cabinet out of range of a wild swing, and a WyreStorm 4K HDBaseT extender carries the signal over 15 metres and lets the client switch it on and off without opening the cabinet. See our golf simulator service.

From the office to the annexe

The finished golf simulator in use in a home annexe in Troon

Golf simulator frame and screen assembled for testing at the Lairds office before installation in Troon

Artificial turf samples tested for the Troon golf simulator

FORB Golf tee mat for the Troon golf simulator

SkyTrak launch monitor on the tee mat in the Troon golf simulator

SkyTrak launch monitor and ball in the Troon golf simulator

Lairds engineers carrying the simulator turf into the house in Troon

What we handed over

A simulator the client plays all year, with a reading of his game he can trust, courses from around the world on the screen, and, by his own account, a good evening when friends come round. The team who built it proved themselves on it.