Fold-Away Golf Simulators for Small Spaces: The Brilliance of Murphy Golf Simulators
It’s an all-too-common conundrum: You want a garage golf simulator, but you don’t want to give up the space. But what if you didn’t have to choose? For Brent Sloan, it was the problem that started Murphy Golf Simulators–a unique stow-away sim build that has all the bells and whistles you want in a golf simulator setup, but can automatically fold itself into a narrow wall cabinet with the touch of a button. What started as a way to keep his wife’s car parked in the garage, has become something of a phenomenon as Murphy Golf Simulators expands to serve space-conscious home golfers in markets across the U.S.
Building a Prototype
“I grew up playing golf with my dad and grandpa,” says Sloan. He’s an easy talker–relaxed and articulate as he recounts memories on the course as a kid. This was a time before a wife and kids of his own; a time before family activities, work obligations, kids’ baseball tournaments and dance recitals made time for golfing scarce.
Golf stayed on the back-burner until his oldest son, Austin, expressed an interest in picking it up. “He was playing other sports at the time, and he came to me and said he wanted to play golf,” says Sloan. “So, I jumped back into it.” In fact, the desire for a space where Austin could work on his game became something of a catalyst for building a home sim.
“I started cheap,” says Sloan, who ended up soaking up his wife’s parking space to build it. “We didn’t really have the space, so I wanted something cost-effective.” It wasn’t fancy, but having an indoor golf space conveniently located in the garage gave him easy access to pick up the clubs again, and he loved it. When it came time to upgrade, Sloan admits he started thinking a little differently about his setup.
“My wife wanted her spot in the garage back, so I started thinking: Do I do an outbuilding? Do I build a shed? There were retractable screens, but then what do you do with the turf? And, in reading the reviews, it’s not great when you hit one in the corner. I started looking for a retractable system so I could keep it in my garage, but put it away when it wasn’t being used and there just wasn’t one out there.” So, he built one.
“It was very rough.” He stops for a quick laugh. “It was very big and very heavy. But it worked! I was able to go out and play a round on the sim, then fold it up and pull my wife’s car back in the garage.”
One Golf Sim Leads to Another
Murphy Golf Simulators takes its concept (and name) from Murphy beds, known for being engineered to hinge at one end so they can seamlessly retract into a wall. The setup means people can have extra sleeping space on-hand in guest rooms, basements, playrooms, and other living areas without having to give up their floorspace and room for day-to-day living.
The prototype Murphy-style sim was a hit. “I’d have 25 people coming over every week to play sim league, and a lot of people started asking about it–friends, people online, you name it.”
A sketch of a hideaway, Murphy Golf Simulator both splayed and retracted.
“I started thinking,” says Sloan, “How could I make this thing I built into a production model? I wanted something that wasn’t this big contraption that took three or four minutes to get going.”
“And my wife started to push me,” he notes. This is a fantastic idea, she told him. People will love it. Do it.
Sloan tapped a close friend with a background in production engineering for help. “His experience is with concert venues where stages, props, and heavy things are being lifted and mobilized,” says Sloan, who spent evenings working to engineer a setup that could be lighter, sleeker, smoother. “We spent hours and hours just engineering the thing–building it, trying to break it, doing all the things you do in an engineering process to make sure it’s going to work.”
The result was a production-quality golf simulator that could seamlessly retract into a sleek, narrow cabinet. How narrow, exactly? About 24 inches in depth, similar in profile to a credenza or garage shelving unit. In fact, by looking at it, you’d have no idea that beyond the polished look of what appears to be a piece of custom furniture is actually an intricately engineered and mechanized system designed to splay out a professional-quality golf simulator, enclosure, and hitting surface in about 30 seconds.
A retractable Murphy Golf Simulator installed in a residential outbuilding by Founder Brent Sloan and his team.
The Solution to a Problem Becomes a Business
It wasn’t long until a nearby country club reached out. They had an indoor event space they needed to keep generally available for baby showers, formal plated dinners, and small weddings, but wanted to add indoor golf as an amenity for members. The rest is, as they say, history. One sim led to another, and another.
These retractable setups are ideal for garages, basements, outbuildings, sheds–really any place where the owner also wants to enjoy useable space when it’s not being used for golf. As long as the space dimensions are on par, Sloan says a Murphy Golf Simulator can be installed just about anywhere. “We’ve built them for barns, garages, basements, AirBnB properties,” he notes. Ceiling height is perhaps the most prohibitive potential issue; golfers usually need at least nine or ten feet of height, depending on variables like golfer height and swing path.
Murphy Golf Simulators are ideal for garages, basements, outbuildings, sheds–really any place where the space needs to be used for both golf and other activities.
Of course, the technology and demand for indoor golf are growing right alongside Sloan’s business. Market research put a staggering $1.3 billion value on the golf simulator market in 2021 amid a post-COVID boon. Four years later, it’s living up to a projected compound annual growth rate of 10-plus percent, and expected to be valued at more than $3 billion by 2030.
Better software, more sophisticated hardware, and a variety of premium accessories like camera systems, hitting mats with embedded sensors, and data analysis tools seem to be converging amid sustained market demand. All of this on the heels of a renewed interest in the sport after the Pandemic rendered the links one of few places people could still get together while social distancing.
But Sloan has a perhaps more astute observation about what’s driving interest in indoor golf: “People are busy,” he says, matter-of-factly. “It used to be about being able to play golf in the winter, but anymore, what I find is that a lot of people get golf sims because they don’t have time to golf. It’s hard to find time to play a five-hour round on a Saturday, especially in the evenings. I coach my kids’ sports. And if it’s not team sports, they’re in band, theater, dance, cheer, you name it. And then there’s travel sports. Families are just busy. For a lot of people, the only time they can really golf is something like 9 o’clock in the evening.”
There’s a very real convenience and accessibility factor to simulator golf. “I was walking down the street in Pittsburgh not long ago and I saw two guys with clubs in the middle of the city on a Saturday. Sure enough, they were headed to a sim outfit in a basement space right in the middle of downtown. People just don’t always have the time to travel outside the city and head to the course.”
Making Golf More Accessible
Today, Murphy Golf Simulators is on a path for growth, with models designed for different types of spaces. His patented systems use simulator technology from the likes of top brands like Uneekor and Foresight, boasting precision accuracy that feels closer to on-course golf than ever.
Murphy Golf Simulator installs are primarily residential–about 90% according to Sloan, who has started working to establish a network of reputable resellers and installers around the country who can operate in their own cities and have showroom locations for customers who want to see these setups in action before investing.
“We’ve got some big opportunities ahead of us,” says Sloan. But he’s not exclusively focused on rapid scale, noting instead that he prefers steady, sustained growth and the opportunity to build something special with a uniquely complementary team. As for the builds themselves, he still finds himself looking for things that can be tweaked and made better. “We keep going and keep improving,” says Sloan, “staying up on the technology and getting our product out to the masses while also keeping our margins low, so as many people as possible can have the opportunity to play golf and get their kids playing golf.”
Sloan pauses for a moment when asked about his favorite or most memorable customers over the years. He seems to thumb through them in his mind, recounting unique people and details about their needs and spaces: A custom-build for a European company; the time he installed a hideaway sim in a 230-foot yacht docked at a port in Miami; installs in outbuildings and multi-level custom barns; the client with a multimillion-dollar brownstone within walking distance of Fenway Park in downtown Boston.
“That was cool,” he says, “but, honestly… the ones that are really great are the ones in cookie-cutter houses in Suburbia USA. They’re not necessarily people who are millionaires. They just love golf, and have kids and time commitments, and don’t have as much time for it anymore. Those are the ones I love the most.”
Learn more about Murphy Golf Simulators at www.murphygolfsimulators.com. Catch the latest builds by following along on Instagram and Facebook.
