My first golf simulator was born in January of 2020. It’s the one featured all throughout this website, at least on the original content I created. I named my golf simulator ‘On The Green’ because the wall to wall green turf. It also became my name in the simulator golf tour, as well as the name of this website.
My buddies and I played thousands of rounds of sim golf over the past 5+ years. It’s been awesome. You can check out my original golf sim setup here. It worked great and I loved it, but there are some things I wanted to improve on.
I’m moving. I am building a new simulator because I am selling the property where my original golf sim is. The good news is that I have a perfect golf sim space in my new building.
My first one served me well for the past five years, but it’s time to move on.
What I Want In My New Sim
My old sim was great. It was powered by the Foresight GC2. The benchmark for the ‘OG’ wider market launch monitors. I still love my GC2 today and recommend them to anyone looking for a high quality, fast response, accurate launch monitor that works with GSPro with no additional subscription.
The upgrades I want in my new sim are:
- I want an overhead launch monitor.
- I want a video of the impact shot replay.
Having an overhead launch monitor sounds pretty sweet I really like the idea of setting the launch monitor up carefully once and locking everything in place. Set it and forget it.
I love my GC2 but it is very easy to have it slightly misalign itself physically causing shots to be slightly off either left or right a little and I have to do a little on the fly calibration.
But what I really crave is the video replay of club/ball impact zone. I want to watch the clubface hit the ball. I want to see the shot replayed.
I think this is the main drawback my old sim had. A video replay would set my simulator up to the next level. I know video replay is not a new are amazing new feature, but for me personally it is a big upgrade.
I’m 95% sure I am going to go with a Protee VX.
The community discussion and reviews of the product are solid and the customer support seems responsive and helpful. It’s overhead and offers video replay of impact. Plus it offers measured ball data, ai algo club data (reported pretty accurate) and no additional subscription to play GSPro.
Customer support is key and the competitor Uneekor discord is currently (at the time of publication of this content on 8/27/2025 very unhappy with Uneekor, unfortunately.
Uneekor offers the closest competitor of an overhead launch monitor that has been around for a while now and I was looking at the Eye XO.
There are some new guys on the block for slightly lower prices that I’m looking at as well. I do like the Protee VX though because of the on-going quality of product and development and refinement of the software. A lot of launch monitors go through issues fine tuning everything and the smoother something works for me, obviously the better.
If you are looking at building your own sim, take a look at my launch monitor guide and comparison chart where I list all the launch monitors you should know exist before deciding on which one to use in your sim.
Next Big Upgrade – Pimp Daddy Projector
I didn’t think I would every shell out the big bucks for a high end projector but the BenQ AK700ST has sold me. I’m going to go balls out and pay the big money for this one. 4k, Laser, 4000 lumens and designed for golf sims. I’m in. Let’s do it.
My old sim I used an Optoma short throw and it worked pretty good. The image was good, not great but personally it was fine. If budget was a huge concern I would go with the Optima again in a heart beat.
This time though, I’m trying out the new Gray impact screen from Carls Place. Plus I plan to do more videos and have a sweet setup where I can create content, have fun and it looks good doing so.
If you haven’t heard of the AK700ST, it’s BenQ’s golf simulator specific projector.
With as much as thing thing costs it should come with Jim Nantz telling me “Hello Friends” every time I turn it on. Seriously it’s more money that I thought I’d spend on a projector but it is what it is.
Which Hitting Mat?
So I’m going back to my OG Fiberbuilt 4×7. I will keep the Carls Hotshot mat and use it when any lefty’s come over, but the fiberbuilt is going back in the main setup. I will be trying out a few different hitting strips and new mats over time so keep an eye on the site for updates and info on that.
I’m keeping the same gaming computer and of course GSPro paired with the Simulator Golf Tour to make the main pieces of my sim complete.
Building Your First Simulator?
There are a ton of things to take into consideration and options that range from budget builds to six figure build outs.
The good news is, is that you have a ton of more launch monitor options now than when I was building my first sim. Back then my overhead options were the GCHAWK which is $25,000 or so and something like TruGolf which was some ungodly price if I remember correctly.
Today, there are competing units at the $5000 – $8000 range that sit overhead and work great with GSPro.
Take a look at my budget guide to building a great simulator as well as one hundred different real life golf sim examples to get inspiration from.