Golf Simulator Build and Install, or, Turning my Garage into a Playland for Grown Ups!

It was mid-July in 2025. Golf season is at its peak, and I was getting out 3-4 times per week. I golf enough that I should be good at it, but the reality is I am happy to break 90. That doesn’t mean it’s not enjoyable, because every round is an adventure. We were doing the usual post-round talk, and one of the guys brought up the idea of heading south for a couple of weeks in the winter of 2025-2026 for a golf getaway. In order to do a proper golf trip, one needs to have at least 4 players, and, in our case, getting everyone to agree on the time and place was proving difficult.

Then fate stepped in, as it often does. Our video expert and editor, Chris Eberle, recently reviewed the BenQ Home Cinema W2720i 4K Projector. In the review, Chris experienced a performance that was far higher than he anticipated for the $2500 asking price.

Out of curiosity, I decided to visit the BenQ website and soon noticed that the company was going after the golf simulator market in a big way! I started to think about the idea of having golf available for the 5 months of the year when golf is a rarity in our Great Lakes region.

It was this page on the BenQ site that was the catalyst for the start of this project: https://www.benq.com/en-us/projector/golf/ak700st.html.

The concept of ‘A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words’ was never truer. Why spend thousands of dollars organizing a trip of 14 days for one winter vacation when I could possibly spend the same money and golf year-round, not only this year, but for years to come? We already had a proper space for this project: A detached garage that was largely being used for storage for our now-grown children’s stuff.

The next step was to ask our Editor-in-Chief, Carlo Lo Raso, if he thought BenQ and Secrets of Home Theater and High Fidelity would be interested in an article detailing such an installation. BenQ and Carlo were both an enthusiastic YES! Over the next two months, we measured, discussed, and planned out what to do in our space.

As it turned out, the available space in our garage was about perfect. The folks at BenQ suggested their AK700ST dedicated golf simulation projector. They also had resources available for the rest of the project: Uneekor and its EYE XO2 would be the ideal launch simulator package, thanks to its ceiling mount position. I am left-handed, and this unit would allow easy switches between my right-handed friends and me while playing a round without having to stop play to move the simulator.

BenQ also has a working relationship with Carl’s Place, an American company that builds custom ‘cages’ into which one can hit a golf ball. While we ultimately decided on one of their commercial units for our ample garage space, Carl’s Place has a wide array of units available, and one can get a genuine American-made, custom-built unit from them for around $1000.

What we are going to try to do with this article is take what will feel like a daunting task and simplify it. One need not fear doing a simulator (and home entertainment package) with Carl’s Place and BenQ as your source. Both companies can not only help with their own products, but they will also help you pick out the right simulator for your needs and budget!

Enter the design team at Carl’s Place.

BenQ introduced me to Nate Hack from Carl’s Place. Nate’s primary job is to be your guide for all things “simulator.” Nate is one member of the dedicated ‘guides’ that make up the team at Carl’s Place. Any team member can walk you through the process, and they are exceptionally friendly and patient. After several emails and a couple of phone calls, Nate had me get this information for him:

After getting all this information to Nate, we put together a pro model cage / premium screen in the dimensions mentioned above, along with the BenQ AK700ST projector, Uneekor EYE XO2 simulator, and a SurfThing Enhanced Level Desktop computer, which comes with all the necessary software already loaded. The total for the Carl’s Place Cage (including custom-cut, 2-inch pipes) was about $4700. To our ‘cage’ we added about every option available, including the premium screen, 4’ x 9’ hitting mat, extra baffles and foam inserts to cover and isolate the 2-inch piping, a sand trap practice area, and a deep rough practice area. Rather than ‘build’ the needed computer system, we went with the $3400 SurfThing computer, which had everything configured for our system, including the software for the Uneekor Eye O2. The Uneekor is on sale now for $7700, and the BenQ AK700ST’s $2900 price brought the total to $20,000 for the cage, computer, launch monitor, hitting mats, launch monitor and all accessories. We were WELL under budget!

The above paragraph may be confusing to read. What it all means is that this $20,000 will get a person into the system shown in our pictures. This is commercial-level stuff and represents something close to the pinnacle of what one can put into one’s home from the trio of Carl’s Place, BenQ, and Uneekor. The starting point in terms of price from Carl’s Place would be their 8 x 8 x 5-foot cage @ $999, and a Garmin Launch Monitor for under $500 that would get one a nice starting simulator for under $1500, and one could upgrade with a $1199 BenQ AW30ST projector that has a specific setting for proper golf simulation.

I can’t stress enough that the design team at Carl’s Playland was fantastic to work with. They will walk with you from start to finish on YOUR project. Whether your budget is $1500 or $50,000, they will make sure you get your money’s worth in your allotted space!

Everything arrived, and now it was time to assemble:

Once everything arrived, my team of helpers showed up, and we started the process. The first step was to put down a 12 x 20-foot piece of outdoor carpet that can be found at Lowe’s or Home Depot for around $1 per square foot. It also makes for a nice putting area.

Step 2 was to put together the “cage,” which is a two-person task for the professional-level unit we were installing. Once it was assembled, we could start seeing the sheer size of this installation.

Step 3 was to put on the foam inserts and black baffles, install the screen, and center the enclosure between the two garage doors.

Step 4 was the installation and wiring for the Uneekor Eye O2 Launch Monitor, BenQ AK700ST projector, and the SurfThing computer.

Now it’s time to start practicing.

It has been two weeks since we finished all of the above, and for now, we have satisfied ourselves with practice sessions. Imagine having your own driving range with unlimited golf balls at your service. When you hit, you get to see all sorts of data. Club speed, ball speed, launch angle, smash factor, carry, total distance, accuracy, and a host of other data pieces to help with your game. The Uneekor also shows the club at impact with the ball. It’s immediate feedback to let one know where on the clubface one is striking the ball.

The use is simple to the extreme. Hit the ball, look at the data, and wait a few seconds for the Uneekor sign to “go green,” letting you know it’s time to hit again. One does not need a specific spot – there is about a 40 x 28-inch area that works with the monitor every time. It’s not unusual for me to have 150-shot practice sessions. This video will show the unit in action:

The Oasis is Here!

The BenQ-Uneekor-Carl’s Playland trio has now been up and operating for about a month. We put in enough furniture to seat six in our “it’s summer all winter” playground. We have proper lighting, as shown in the video of my two good friends demonstrating how the whole system operates.

This is where all the work of doing this installation is paying off. We can golf anytime we want and can do it all winter. We have a weather pattern here called “lake effect” snow. Anyone living on the Great Lakes knows what this means. For us, it means two feet of snow is an afternoon or evening of friends gathering to play golf and enjoy adult beverages.

The next step will involve my wife organizing, with the help of a mover, to clear out a lot of stuff our now adult children had accumulated over the years. She’s also going to arrange for a very cool glass-front refrigerator to be installed in the play area, and I am going to get a large TV so we can do things like watch playoff football, basketball, NASCAR, or even some professional golf while playing golf. Over the next month, the entire setup will evolve into a full-blown sports bar. We will be including an excellent sound system, complete with a stout subwoofer and high-output studio monitors.

Look for a follow-up round to this article sometime in early February 2026. For now, I can confidently state that making an indoor space into this type of simulator will make long winters much more enjoyable for any golf enthusiast!