For at least a third of the year, golf courses in many parts of Britain can be too waterlogged to play. It’s times like these that having a golf simulator at home comes into its own, says former Premier League footballer Kevin Davies, who last summer had a Trackman iO simulator installed at his home in Poole, Dorset, on England’s southern coast. “When the course flooded, I invited the boys to play 18 holes at home instead; we put music on and opened some beers.”
In his 9.2ft-high basement, Davies’s ceiling-mounted monitor projects a high-definition image on to a screen made from ballistics-grade woven polyester, designed to withstand high-speed ball impacts. Radar tracking technology and AI swing analysis tool Tracy measure more than 40 parameters including speed, spin, distance, carry, launch angle, smash factor — and suggest tweaks so Davies and his friends can improve their technique as they play holes on more than 500 virtual golf courses.
It cost around £30,000, including fitting the padding on the side walls to protect against stray balls, says Davies. “I thought, if I’m going to do it, let’s do it right. We also put in a gym and a bar so it has become a sociable area of the house.”
The popularity of golf simulators is on the upswing. There were more than 9mn “sim” players in the US in 2025, an increase of more than 150 per cent from 2019, according to the National Golf Foundation — just over half had not played on a real-life course in the previous 12 months. Growth of more than 60 per cent is forecast over the next one to two years.
While simulators have been popping up in bars and as shared amenities in apartment buildings, “there has been a boom of installations in homes”, says Alex Yeazel, the Denver-based director of sales for Trackman, the 23-year-old Danish company. Global sales revenue grew 300 per cent between 2019 and 2025.
“The reasons for wanting a sim vary — sometimes it is ‘I want to be better at golf’, sometimes it is ‘I want my kids to be better at golf’, sometimes it is even to help enhance a child’s college admissions opportunities by having a low golf handicap,” says Yeazel.
Between the physical hardware and the ceiling and side protection, installation of a golf simulator costs an average $45,000, according to NGF, ranging between portable set-ups for less than $1,000 to custom-made residential built-ins for $70,000 or more. Most require software, either bought outright or with a subscription, which typically costs from $250 to $1,100 annually.
A single round of 18 holes at Davies’s favourite golf course, Adare Manor in Ireland, meanwhile, will set players back €550, before caddie costs of €120. In the US, joining fees for higher-end courses can surpass half a million dollars on top of annual fees in the tens of thousands. At New Jersey’s Liberty National Golf Club, where actor/producer Mark Wahlberg is a member, the joining fee is $750,000, with additional fees for guests, caddies and golf carts. It has a waiting list.
The surge in sim popularity comes at an interesting time for golf. According to NGF, golf is more popular than ever; last year a record 48.1mn Americans played golf in some form, yet there are some 2,000 fewer courses in the US than at the start of the millennium’s “Tiger boom”, fired up by Tiger Woods.
The industry is now riding a second Tiger wave, this time propelled by indoor golf, a sport championed by Woods, who co-founded indoor golf competition Tomorrow’s Golf League (TGL) with Rory McIlroy. Since its debut in January 2025 as the first primetime televised indoor golf league featuring top PGA Tour players, millions have tuned in to watch golf stars battle on a state of the art 20-metre-wide Full Swing sim. “TGL has been a powerful catalyst for accelerating mainstream interest in simulator-based golf that resonates far beyond traditional golfers,” says Ryan Dotters, chief executive of Full Swing. Adding momentum is the fact that “simulator technology lowers many of the traditional barriers to entry — time, geography, weather and intimidation — making it easier for new players and for existing golfers to play more often,” he adds.
The first golf sims were born in South Korea in the early 2000s — inspired by high real estate costs and limited land to build more courses. Now the industry is worldwide and highly competitive. Alongside Trackman and Full Swing, top brands include Canada’s HD Golf, the US’s Foresight Sports, SkyTrak and TruGolf, and South Korea’s Uneekor. In the past decade, undulating moving floors known as virtual greens have made the technology more realistic, with dynamic swing plates that mimic the exact terrain (rough, sand, fairway) and gradient of your lie. South Korea’s Golfzon and Britain’s Zen Golf are leaders in the field.
Golfers like to quote Gary Player, who famously said: “The harder I practise, the luckier I get.” The adage offers a persuasive use case for developers offering condos with golf sims as part of the shared amenities — especially when trying to lure would-be buyers in cities who can’t slip off to Bethpage Black (in New York state) for the day.
Sports simulators have become a “cornerstone” of multifamily living in upscale developments, “especially in a city where golf isn’t immediately on your doorstep”, says Lloyd Goldman, president and founder of BLDG Management Co, developer of The Orchard, a 70-storey tower in Queens, New York, which has installed an HD Golf multi-sport sim. “Golf simulators are no longer a luxury, but a standard, even in Florida,” agrees Nick Pérez, president of developer Related Group’s condominium division, which is selling Ritz-Carlton Residences in West Palm Beach, a 27-storey tower of 138 homes with amenities that include an About Golf simulator.
At the Pendry Residences in Nashville, Tennessee, a collection of 146 homes, residents will have access to three Full Swing simulator bays with virtual greens. “It brings together golf-loving homeowners, fostering a sense of community,” says Robin Kennedy, executive vice-president and chief development officer at Montage International, the owner of Pendry.
While “nothing beats being outside in nature on a real course,” says Ben Cowan-Dewar, the founder of Cabot, which has golf courses and residences across the US, Canada and Scotland, “Golf sims are a valuable complement to the traditional game, especially for warm-up, practice and game improvement.” Cabot uses Trackman technology at its Florida and Nova Scotia properties, which Cowan-Dewar chose for its “accuracy, depth of data and intuitive software”.
Back in Dorset, with the weather improved, Davies is keen to get out on a real course to see if all the practice on his sim has translated into better technique. He has a competitive nature — and his 22-year-old son plays with a lower handicap. “The million-dollar question is, will it make me a better golfer?” laughs Davies. “I know my limitations and it’s never going to get too serious. For me, [playing on a sim] is about enjoying the social element with friends and the time spent with my son.”
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