All too many garages sit unused, collecting a barrage of items that you haven’t used in years (yes, including the treadmill you bought after you put on a few extra lbs in the 90s), covered with dust and spiderwebs.

The good news is we consider this to be an easily fixable problem. The solution, of course, is to get rid of all that crap via freecycle, and build your very own custom residential golf swing analysis center. You’ll be the envy of the neighborhood!

Now go find your checkbook and make sure you have enough in your bank account to send your children to college. We will need to immediately drain these funds.

The shopping list:

  1. The basics: to get up and running, order a TrueStrike golf mat with all the trimmings ($800) and a hitting cage with net ($500) to be able to start swinging before all the other goodies arrive.
  2. The hardware: for the power you’ll want to invest in a nice desktop computer (we always prefer a Mac) with a minimum 500GB drive and enough ports for all of your cameras. To be safe, let’s get the latest Mac Pro from Apple and pair it with a lovely LED display. You’ll also need Parallels Desktop for Mac and a copy of Windows to run the swing analysis software. $6,000.
  3. Cameras: to capture all the action, train a minimum of 3 cameras on your buttery swing. Since you’re flush with cash don’t hassle with repositioning these cameras for putting analysis, but instead bring the tab to about $3,000 by ordering up two more cameras to dedicate to your putting stoke. 3 large should cover the cost of lens purchases as well.
  4. The brains: teaching professionals use it, and we think you’ll do just fine by it as well – order up one of the most popular golf swing analysis packages available, the V1 Pro 2010. As there will be a minimum of three cameras to capture your full swing plus another two for your putting stroke, you’re going to need to pony up $7,000 for the Eight Camera License. But hey, with 3 years of their Pro Advantage service included, you’ll get full access to Tour player swing models filmed at 300 frames per second.
  5. Lights: no makeup is necessary, but you are still going to want some decent lighting. Crack open the piggy bank and grab another $1,500 for a set of DP studio lights.
  6. Showing it off: whomever is controlling the software will have a nice display on which to break down your swing, but we bet you are going to want at least two televisions – one for each of the full swing area and also the putting area. Let’s not get crazy here…some 52″ Sony’s will be fine, and only set you back another $4,000.
  7. Just like on TV: unless you live on a serious amount of land and can open your garage to hit into a field and watch your actual ball flight, you will love digging deep into your pockets for a TrackMan Home Studio. Just as seen on golf tournaments, the TrackMan measures ball launch and club movement, calculates the length, dispersion and trajectory of each shot, and then displays a graphic representation of ball flight. Awesome. And it starts at only $16,600.
  8. Get balanced: you’ve come this far with your spending, so no reason not to be a good American by ruining your credit and putting yourself deeper into debt. By going all out and dropping another $7,000, you can distance yourself from the competing home golf studios on your block with a Dynamic Balance System (DBS) to help improve your stability.
  9. Odds and ends: while you’ve ordered all the main components, don’t forget all the little things. Allocate at least another $500 or so for cables and camera mounts.
  10. Last but not least is the small matter of construction of a wet bar in your garage, and any hourly fees to provide for a bartender or waitress. We leave this spending to your discretion as well as any investment in the couches that you wish to provide for a seating area (did someone say “Corinthian leather”?).

And please…don’t forget to invite us over when it’s complete!

Built a home golf studio before? Send us your pictures to share with the community in a future blog post!

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