Why We Chose a Private Golf Simulator Bay

The private simulator bay at Swingers Golf Club gives your group the entire space to play golf, hang out, watch TV, and make yourselves at home.

When we were putting together Swingers Golf Club, we knew pretty early on that we wanted to do something a little different.

Yes, there were some practical limitations. Our space wasn’t exactly going to fit six simulator bays even if we’d wanted it to. But the more we thought about the places we’d played indoor golf ourselves, the more we realized that one private bay wasn’t really a limitation at all. It was kind of the whole point.

We didn’t want Swingers to feel like a driving range that happened to be indoors. We wanted it to feel more like getting a private karaoke room with your friends—except instead of waiting your turn to sing, you’re waiting your turn to swing.

Your Group, Your Room

One thing we’d noticed playing at multi-bay simulator facilities was how surprisingly hard it could be to actually hang out with the people you came with.

You’re trying to have a conversation, but you can hear the group in the next bay better than you can hear your own friends. Then you start talking louder, and suddenly you’re wondering if you’re the annoying group.

That’s not exactly the relaxing round of golf we had in mind.

At Swingers, when you book the simulator, the entire place is yours.

Shut the door. Talk about whatever you want. Talk as loud as you want. Put your music on. Throw whatever you want on the TV. Celebrate a 40-foot putt like you just won the Masters. Nobody in the next bay cares, because there isn’t a next bay.

At Swingers, your group gets the entire simulator space to itself, with room to golf, relax, talk, listen to music, and hang out between shots.

No Eyes on You

There’s another side to the privacy that we really like: golf can be intimidating.

If you’ve played for years, it’s easy to forget how weird it can feel walking onto a driving range when you’re just getting started.

You’ve got golfers on both sides of you. Someone behind you waiting for a stall. The guy two spots over looks like he’s striping every iron 200 yards. Meanwhile, you’re standing over the ball thinking, please just make contact.

Even experienced golfers can get a little self-conscious when their swing suddenly disappears.

A private simulator takes that pressure away.

Close the door and nobody’s watching.

Top the ball. Shank one. Whiff completely. Hit 25 seven-irons trying to figure something out. Nobody cares.

And if you’re introducing a friend to golf for the first time, we think that’s a pretty great environment to do it.

A private golf simulator gives golfers a place to practice without neighboring bays, spectators, or the pressure of hitting in front of strangers.

It’s Still a Place to Practice

Privacy doesn’t only make Swingers more comfortable socially. It also makes it a pretty great place to actually work on your game.

If you want to spend your entire session hitting wedges, do it. If you want to work through every club in your bag, do that. If you want to stare at your numbers after every shot and figure out why the ball keeps going right, you’ve got the time and space to do it.

Our Uneekor Eye XO gives you real-time ball and club data, slow-motion impact footage, and strike-location information, so there’s plenty to dig into if that’s your thing.

And if you’re curious about how much you can actually trust those numbers, we wrote a whole separate Golf Journal post about how accurate golf simulators really are.

Indoor golf doesn't have to be all practice. The private setup at Swingers gives friends their own place to play a round, watch TV, eat, drink, and hang out.

Or Don’t Practice at All

This part is important too.

You don’t have to come to Swingers to “work on your game.”

Play 18 with your buddies. Put a game on the TV. Play your own music. Bring some food. Have a beer. Talk shit. Spend ten minutes trying to hit a ridiculous flop shot because somebody bet you couldn’t do it.

That’s a perfectly valid use of the place.

In some ways, that’s what we like most about the private setup. It can be serious golf when you want it to be, but it doesn’t have to be.

The Private Bay Is Swingers

There are plenty of great multi-bay simulator facilities, and we’re not trying to recreate them on a smaller scale.

Swingers is supposed to be something different.

It’s your own golf room for a couple of hours.

Come by yourself and practice without distractions. Bring a friend who’s never swung a club before. Get four buddies together and play a round. Put the Blazers game on. Play your terrible music. Talk about whatever you want without wondering who can hear you.

And with the Moda Center less than a mile away, Swingers makes a pretty good stop before or after a Blazers or Portland Fire game, Winterhawks hockey, a concert, or whatever else brings you to the Rose Quarter. Get a round in before the event, or keep the night going afterward.

Lock the door behind you and make yourself at home.

That’s the whole idea.

Want the place to yourself?
Book a private session and the whole place is yours.

Swingers Golf Club is a private indoor golf simulator in Portland located on Russell St. near MLK, less than a mile from the Moda Center and Rose Quarter.