$5k Budget Golf Simulator Setup Ideas

Golf simulators have evolved from luxury items to attainable dream setups for golf enthusiasts, bringing the driving range to your living room. The best part? You can get a top-notch, affordable golf simulator for around $5,000. 

Let's tee off a few examples that include everything you need to at least get you started swinging at home: an enclosure and impact screen, a launch monitor and a hitting mat.

There are a lot of factors that play a role in the cost of a simulator; not every setup mentioned here will work in everybody’s available space. But let us use this as a reminder to you that Carl can custom size enclosures and screens down to the inch to possibly fit your unique space.

Basically, if you can safely swing a club in your space, we likely can fit a golf simulator in there. 

CARL'S TIP: On a serious budget? Carl's clearance page might have some of the equipment you're looking for at an even better price. We’ve even had refurbished launch monitors on the clearance page before. You can also finance your golf simulator!

If your budget is tight and you’re looking to prioritize your golf simulator purchases, here is what you’ll need as the bare minimum to get started with your home golf simulator: enclosure and impact screen (with pipes), hitting mat, and launch monitor.

Carl’s Most Affordable Golf Simulator

We used our golf simulator customizer tool to build out our most affordable golf simulator. Prices reflected in the screenshot below are as of July 2024. 

Enclosure and Impact Screen

8x8 DIY Enclosure and Pipe Kit with Standard Impact Screen

This is the most affordable standard sized enclosure and impact screen that Carl offers. 
A setup like this will fit in many spaces. Just beware of how much room you need to swing; many aspects of your space, as well as your height and how you swing a club, will play a factor.

Although we can customize enclosures and screens down to the inch, we want your space to be as safe as possible, so we don’t recommend going smaller than 8x8.

We did include the pipe kit from Carl because you’re going to need pipes to hold up the enclosure; however, sourcing and cutting your own pipes locally will save you money. 

Hitting Mat

Carl’s 4x5’ HotShot Hitting Mat

Our most affordable hitting mat is arguably one of our best values as well when it comes to price, realistic feel and joint forgiveness. But we are a bit biased since it is one of Carl’s HotShot Hitting Mats.

The smaller size is also more flexible for fitting your golf simulator in a smaller space. Note that with it being 5 feet wide, some taller players might be close to the edge of the mat when hitting driver. 

Launch Monitor

Garmin Approach R10

The Garmin Approach R10 is our most affordable launch monitor. It may not have the high-end course play options like some other launch monitors, but it still allows you to get some efficient practice swings in with the Garmin Golf App.

If you pay a small subscription, you can get access to Garmin’s Home Tee Hero, which gives you access to 42,000 courses. Just don’t expect the highly detailed graphics you’ll find on other third-party softwares such as GSPro.

PROJECTOR

BenQ TH671ST

With this enclosure, impact screen, hitting mat and launch monitor making a golf simulator for less than $3,000, we figured we would add in an optional, but affordable projector - the BenQ TH671ST - as well.

You could tinker around with a cheap projector off of Amazon to see if it would work in your space, but we know the TH671ST is great entry level projector for golf sims based on its brightness (lumens), throw distance, resolution, and so on. 

What Is The Best Affordable Golf Simulator?

For the best affordable golf simulator, we took a step up in a couple areas, including enclosure size, impact screen and launch monitor, and we were still able to stay under the $5,000 budget.

Enclosure and Impact Screen

8x10.5 DIY Enclosure and Pipe Kit with Preferred Impact Screen

We bumped the enclosure size up to our most popular, which is the 8x10.5 DIY with a Preferred Impact Screen.

The sizing of this enclosure is better for matching up with a projected image as it works out to be a 4:3 aspect ratio, which most projectors are capable of producing. Also, the Preferred Impact Screen is a decent step up from the Standard when it comes to projected image quality. We may not have a projector planned in this build out, but of course it is good to keep an eye on the future.

The extra width also provides a little more protection for errant shots to the left or the right. 
We could have maybe gone up to the Premium Impact Screen to help with sound dampening and durability, but we instead used those savings to upgrade the launch monitor even more.

We didn’t include the pipe framing kit this time to save money for adding a projector. So, you would need to cut the pipes for the frame at a hardware store. We’ll tell you what lengths to cut, and it’ll save you a few bucks.

Launch Monitor

Uneekor EYE MINI Lite

There are several other more affordable options to keep a golf simulator under $5,000, but there aren’t many better options than the EYE MINI Lite.

With the EYE MINI Lite, you’re getting a simplified version of the EYE MINI, which is a floor-mounted version of Uneekor’s higher end EYE XO unit. The EYE MINI Lite is simplified because it has to be plugged in for power, has to be wire connected to a PC, and doesn’t have the display to show your numbers on the unit.

None of that is a huge deal to us if we are looking to save some money, but still get a top-notch launch monitor. With the EYE MINI Lite, you’re still able to get great Uneekor features, such as View software and the club-at-impact replay. The biggest drawback is that it’s not possible (or convenient) to use with both righties and lefties at the same time.

But, speaking of the future again, Uneekor easily connects to third-party software. So once you save up some more money, you can upgrade to a better course play software, connect it to your EYE MINI Lite, and make your simulator even more realistic.

Hitting Mat

Carl’s 4x5’ HotShot Hitting Mat

Since we went with the EYE MINI Lite, we had to be mindful of budget elsewhere, so we stuck with the inexpensive Carl’s 4x5’ HotShot Hitting Mat. As we stated before, not only the easiest hitting mat on the wallet, but one of the best values.

Projector

BenQ TH671ST

As you can see, we truly value having a projector in our golf sim. It’s just so much easier to swing, look up where you hit the ball and see the ball fly instead of looking at a separate monitor, tablet or phone.

So we again added in the budget friendly BenQ TH671ST. That put us just over $5,000, but we were dang close!

Conclusion

Finding the perfect golf simulator under (or near) $5,000 doesn't mean you have to compromise on quality or features.

Carl's top picks showcase some great value for golfers to improve their game at home. These budget-friendly options prove that you can have a great setup without breaking the bank.

Tee up, swing away, and enjoy the game—right in the comfort of your living room, or basement, or garage, or shed … and so on!