Indoor Putting Green Design

Indoor putting green design is the work of fitting a green to your space: its size and shape, the cups, the edge, any chipping areas and what goes underneath. Pro Putt Systems designs custom indoor putting greens for homes, golf teams, putting studios and offices; send us a sketch with simple measurements and we draw the green for you.

On this page

1. When a standard model doesn’t fit
2. The putting turf
3. The interlocking base panels
4. Panels or turf only
5. Custom with bump rail
6. Bump rail or fringe, compared
7. Custom with fringe
8. Custom wall to wall
9. How we design your green
10. Materials for DIY projects

When a standard model doesn’t fit

We put a lot of thought into our standard models. They’re designed to be short game practice machines, we’ve listened to our customers through the years, and in many cases the standard models work well. But if one doesn’t quite fit your space, we’ll help you get the green you want.

• Add or remove a hole
• Add 2 ft to the length or width
• Add a fringe border
• A custom L shape
• A corner green that fits your space
• An inlay chipping area
• Help designing your indoor facility

We design indoor putting greens for clients every day. Customization is no problem because we stock all the panels, components, putting turf and various types of chipping and hitting turf in our shop, and our team can build what you like.

The putting turf

Do we use our best turf on all putting greens? Yes. From turf only to wall to wall golf rooms, we use only TourPutt Ultimate (TPU).

TourPutt Ultimate	Detail
Fiber	Dual color Miraset nylon
Infill	None required
Thickness	0.5 in
Warranty	10 years, outdoor
Stimp reading	10.8 to 11.6

The Miraset process is proprietary to TPU, and the result is a turf that is tight and dense, with the structure and durability for real putting and chipping performance. It rolls 10.8 to 11.6 on a USGA Stimpmeter when it sits on the interlocking base panel system or a hard, flat surface; see what a Stimpmeter is.

The interlocking base panels

First and foremost, these panels are not made from foam or foam rubber.

Base panel	Detail
Footprint	Roughly 2 × 2 ft
Thickness	2 in
Weight	8 lb each
Shapes	Several sizes and shapes
Strength	You can drive a car on them

These are the panels we use to make all of our greens with base. I’m not a polymeric engineer, but I can tell you they are made from some durable stuff. Most importantly, while they are durable, they also flex to take smooth, rolling undulations and breaks, and when you want the base dead flat again, take the undulation material away and they snap back to dead flat.

The base panels are 2 in thick and the turf is 0.5 in thick, so you get a 2.5 in drop into the cups. Watching and hearing the ball disappear into a cup is a vitally important part of effective putting practice.

Panels or turf only

Do you need the panels? No, they aren’t completely necessary, but the way the panels and the turf work together creates an optimal practice surface. In many cases customers opt for turf only: in bulk, in one of our pre-cut sizes or in a custom cut size.

The panels serve three primary purposes:

1. They elevate the turf off the ground, so the ball drops into a cup and you don’t have to core drill holes in your floor.
2. They allow you to add and remove smooth, rolling undulations. Place an Easy Breaks and Undulations Kit under the assembled panels and you have just about any shape of putt you want, even uphill and downhill.
3. The panels and turf work together to absorb and disperse the energy of a chipped ball, which creates a very realistic check and run on the short game shots you’ll meet on the course.

With a simulator, there are two more benefits:

4. We can inset a high quality mat directly in the floor for a clean, professional look. We call this custom simulator flooring.
5. With a floor-mounted launch monitor, we can channel the interface and power wires beneath the turf, inside the panel system, and have them pop up where you want them instead of running across the floor.

Custom with bump rail

All of our standard models have a bump rail border, molded right into that type of panel. You can stand on it and kick it, and the bump rail won’t budge. We can create inside corners, bump-out corners, and rectangle or square greens with rounded corners. A custom green with a bump rail edge is the most popular type of custom we build.

We like bump rail greens because they’re easy for you to install, they’re very cost effective, and most importantly, the whole footprint is putting surface.

Bump rail or fringe, compared

Here are two greens with the same 8 × 12 ft footprint and 5 cup positions each. The difference is the size of the putting surface.

	Bump rail	Fringe border
Putting surface	8 × 12 ft	6 × 10 ft
Usable area	96 sq ft	60 sq ft
Longest putt	Nearly 12 ft	About 9 ft
Price	Lower	About 20 to 30% higher

The longest putt is the effective diagonal. The fringed green prices out higher while it offers less putting surface.

I’m not trying to discourage you from a green with fringe; we sell numerous fringed greens each week. Many people want what they want, and we’re fine with this.

Custom with fringe

Custom greens with a fringe border have a ton of aesthetic appeal. But the fringe border is largely there to hide the transition and add some natural shape, not necessarily to chip from. You can chip from it, but it is slanted to cover the transition. For chipping, we offer several chipping mats and pads, which all have multiple chipping surfaces and are portable, so you’re not stuck chipping from the same distance all the time.

Custom greens with fringe borders come in three formats:

1. Free standing. The green transitions from the putting surface down to the floor around its entire circumference.
2. Hybrid fringe and bump rail. One customer liked the fringe look on the side they could see from the other rooms in their home, but didn’t want to spend money fringing the sides they could not see regularly.
3. Corner green. The green goes flush on 2 or even 3 sides in a corner. It usually has a transition border only on the exposed sides; against the walls it runs flush, with putting turf right up to the wall or putting turf then fringe turf.

We traveled to install the hybrid and corner greens, but it is not at all necessary to pay us for installation. Another fringed green was designed in our office, cut in our shop, then shipped to Chicago, where the customer installed it themselves (and they are about as handy as me, not very).

Custom wall to wall

Custom installed golf rooms are very popular in luxury homes, college facilities and high-end clubs. When they’re designed properly, they are just as functional as they are beautiful. In almost all cases, one of our crews travels to install a wall to wall golf room. A few examples:

• A wall to wall green with undulation, inlay tight lie chipping areas, a fringe border on one side for rough chipping, and 7 cups.
• A 45 ft putting surface with multiple inlay chipping areas, custom undulation and numerous cups, designed so the owner never gets bored and can practice any short game shot they want.
• A college golf room Pro Putt Systems designed and built for Saginaw Valley State University: a 52 ft green, undulation, multiple inlay chipping surfaces, custom portable chipping pads, handicap accessibility and a large area of tight lie chipping turf.

Wall to wall isn’t just for commercial projects; we build residential wall to wall greens too. See more college and facility projects.

How we design your green

Whatever indoor putting green design you can imagine, we can help bring it to life, and if you don’t have a design in mind, we can help there too.

1. Send us a basic sketch of your area with simple measurements.
2. We design the green and return a detailed plan drawing.
3. We cut it in our shop and ship it to you, or one of our crews travels to install it.

Materials for DIY projects

We also offer materials for DIY projects. If you’re handy and just want the materials to build your own indoor putting green, we’re here to help. Call 844-776-7888 or leave us a note on our contact page.