This is an absolutely massive development for me – I have only ever done my work outdoors, with the exception of having visited an indoor golf dome in Toronto, which was not the best place in the world to shoot video, and which was ridiculously expensive by the hour.

There is also of course the TXG analysis facility in the same city, which is very busy and usually booked for weeks ahead, to which I’ve been a couple of times, but I’ve always wished there was a place close to me that didn’t require the cost of a house down payment per hour.

I live in a strange little part of the area where there is very little indoor golf, the exception being a couple of golf clubs’ indoor simulators, again with ridiculous rates (to me) and where everything is watched and scrutinized (try setting up a video camera in some of these places and you’d think they are protecting state secrets), but I found something this morning while doing my daily morning news sweep online:

I mean, it says it all there – no staff on site, 24 hrs/day, 365 days/year, come and go with automated entry via an app and what more would you want from a golf simulator venue?

The best part – it’s virtually next door to me – I mean, I could look out my living room window and see the place if it weren’t for all of the trees between.  It’s literally a couple of city blocks away.

I haven’t been there yet, of course, but there are dual purposes to this that I can see – the first is that I can continue to hit balls a couple of days per week through the close of the season, which means perhaps working on the second swing model after I’ve finished shooting the MCS Classic Golf Swing video.

The second means possibly being able to produce swing content on a weekly basis for some type of vlog series that runs October to April or whenever the outdoor season begins anew next year.

A Quick Look

Even better, I won’t have to bring along my wonky SC300i launch monitor – the simulator’s driving range setting has most if not all of the analysis metrics that you’d want to see if I’m hitting balls – ball tracer, club and ball speed, side and back spin rates, launch angle and of course carry and total yardage.

Now, I don’t know what the lighting conditions are with regards to setting up a camera to shoot anything, but I’ve got an iPhone 11 which has very good video production, so I don’t see that being a problem, other than perhaps having to learn how to play with saturation settings or whatnot.

This is my game-changer – practically next door and open 24 hrs, which means with my being self-employed and working out of my home office, I can choose the quietest times of day (most people who use golf simulators are employed and most of them work days), which likely means very good hours for me to pop down there if I have an hour or two free during the day.

This is big, and if I find when I check it out that it is conducive to video-recording, it could be even bigger.

I haven’t yet begun the site change process yet, as you’ll all have noticed, but that is coming shortly, along with resumed business to do with the golf swing model.

More to come!