Kaizen Golf Professional "Pro" Golf Impact Screen - Detailed Product Review

Introducing our Flagship Golf Impact Screen 

When you are looking at building your dream golf simulator in your garage or spare room, there is no doubt that a good simulator screen is a key building block that will really elevate the golf simulation experience for you (and for your mates who are looking to impress...c'mon lets be honest here). 

Then as you start doing a bit of research on how to purchase one, especially if you are in Australia, you will inevitably be baffled (pardon the pun) by how hard it to get your hands on a higher quality golf impact screen, which is then soon followed by a churning feeling in your stomach when you realise how much money it was going to cost you.

Ever since we launched our Premium Impact Screen, which is a very high quality screen that delivers fantastic picture quality, we set out another challenge to provide a "no compromises" ultra-high end impact screen at a reasonable price point for our customers who are looking take their golf  sims to the next level.

After much collaboration with our manufacturing team and months of long-term testing, we are now super excited to introduce our flagship Kaizen Golf Professional Impact Screen which is a multi-layer golf impact screen that takes the immersive golfing experience to the professional level. 

And equally as important, we have ensured that the product is offered at an affordable price range.

In this article, we will cover this product in detail, including it's material and construction, as well as other key purchasing considerations such as strength and durability, quietness & bounce back, picture quality as well as price. 

We hope this article will help you to make a considered buying decision if you are on the market for a high-end golf impact screen. 

Material and Construction

The biggest point of distinction of our Pro screen is the material that we have proudly developed. After working closely with our manufacturing team and multiple rounds of testing, we've developed a material that is finely woven and multi-layered, using commercial grade polyester material. This is the industry standard for high-end, commercial golf simulator screens.

See pictures below of what this material looks like up-close.

Features & Key Buying Considerations

The use of the multi-layer (3D) material brings a number of benefits and advantages over single layer screens, which we will outline below. 

These benefits have been validated through months of testing before we were confident enough to offer this product to our customers. 

Strength & Durability

Using a super strong commercial grade polyester material as a base, the multi-layer (also known as 3D, sandwich) construction provides added thickness for more strength and durability. 

After months of testing, although we were able to observe some wear spots/burn marks on areas of the screen which bears the bulk of the shots - this level of wear is on par with (if not slightly better than) testing done with other market leading products. Check out the result of MyGolfSpy's tesing of another market leading product here.  

Quietness & Bounce Back

Although strength and durability took months to test, the level of quietness and bounce back can be experienced straight away.

The extra thickness of the material really shines here and as soon as you hit a ball and watch it hit the screen and drop straight down with nothing but a dull thud, you know you have a high-end impact screen.

Based on our testing, we were really impressed with how little bounce back we had from the screen and how well it deadened the noise of impact - there was definitely an observable improvement compared to our Premium Screen.

A word on bounce back - a big contributor of bounce back is how tight you stretch the screen around the sides. We do not recommend over-stretching / over-tensioning the screen - you will just end up turning it into a trampoline no matter what material you use, you will also speed up the wear and tear of your screen as it will not have the ability to absorb impact. Furthermore, you will not really get much of an observable improvement in image quality if you overstretch the screen. 

We always recommend the use ball bungees to tighten the sides as they provide further 'give' and 'flex' to your screen. 

Picture Quality

Now to the most important part of any golf impact screen - the picture quality.

With its fine weaving pattern and thickness, the Kaizen Professional screen is designed to produce a sharp image and to minimise light bleeding. 

Even with a WXGA Epson projector, which is one level lower than HD, we were extremely impressed with the clarity and crispness of the image being projected.

We tested this when the room was fully lit as well as when only a spotlight was shone on the hitting area - see photos below.

Of course the image was better when lighting was controlled, but even under full ambient lighting, the image was clear and vivid. In fact all of our durability testing was done under full ambient lighting and didn't really feel the urge to turn the lights down.

When taking a closer look at the screen, we could easily see all the pixels being projected on the screen, so the quality of the image is more limited by the projector and not so much the screen. Therefore we have no doubt that you would be able to get a even better image if you have a HD or 4K projector and you can easily turn your golf simulator into an immersive home theatre. We will of course also test the product with a HD projector down the track and share our findings. 

Price

Whilst the 'Pro' screen is not cheap, we've made sure that it is still fairly priced for the value of the product as well as relative to other options available both domestically and overseas. Please refer to our Golf Simulator Screen Buying guide for a full summary of the different options of golf impact screens available for purchase in Australia. 

Currently we have 2 standard sizes:

• 3m x 2.7m is priced at $559, and
• 4m x 3m is priced at $959

We also can do custom sizes for a very reasonable price - i.e. it will be proportionate to the size that you are after. Please don't hesitate to contact us for a quote if you want a custom size screen.

And if you are looking to get a golf mat, make sure you take advantage of our 'Net & Mat Package' deal where you will get 10% off the price of the screen if you purchase it together with any golf mat.

Pro Tips 

The 'Pro' screen will be big investment in your golf simulator set up, so here are some tips on how to get the most enjoyment out of your screen as well as how you can extend it's life. 

• Hanging - you will need a frame to hang your impact screen on. It can be as easy as a steel wire rope from Bunnings which is what we have, or with a bit of elbow grease, you can build yourself a full enclosure with metal poles (or PVC). Here's a good resource on how you can build your own impact screen enclosure from Gungho Golf. You can get other DIY ideas and inputs from the various Golf Simulator related groups on Facebook. 

• Play with the tension - you can adjust how taut your screen is by fastening the sides of the screen. We recommend using tarpaulin clips and bungee ball cords to do this, see photo below. Adjust the positioning and the number of tarp clips to get the right tension. At the right tautness level, your screen should have a relatively flat/taut look without having the golf ball trampolining back at you. 

• Iron out those kinks - as the screens are folded for packaging purposes, they may initially have some creases when you first hang them. For higher end polyester based screens, the material will naturally want to straighten out over time so you really won't need to do anything. But if you really want to speed up that process, then you can use an iron, just be sure to set it to 'polyester' mode. 
• Clean clubs - the last thing you want is dirty patches on your impact screen. Clean your clubs before you your sim session, this applies to your guests too.
• Clean balls - the only thing worse than dirty patches is an imprint of sharpie markings from your golf ball on your pristinely white screen. Take care to make sure that the balls you use for your sim are clean and do not have any markings on them. 
• Watch out for scuffed up balls - believe it or not, the number one killer of golf nets and impact screens is not ball speed. Friction from high spinning iron and wedge shots cause the most wear to your impact screen. So if you are seeing scuffing on your balls, it will be advisable to swap them out - balls are much cheaper to replace than a quality golf impact screen. 
• Leave space behind - especially if you have a wall or something hard behind your impact screen, a minimum gap of a foot is recommended to ensure you have a safe set up.
• Get the right projector for your screen and space - for the most immersive experience, you will want to fill up your screen as much possible. This is actually more complicated than you think as different projectors are set to produce different image sizes. We strongly recommend using the Projection Calculator Tool from Projector Central to confirm that the projector that you've got in mind will give you the right sized image.
• Invest in a good projector to maximise the sim golf experience with this top quality impact screen, especially if you want to double it up as a home cinema set up. 

To Conclude