How to Add a Golf Simulator Program to Your School
For five months a year, high school golfers are left without a home venue. Put a simulator in front of them and they play through the winter, with no field to book and no other school’s schedule to work around.
The National Federation of State High School Associations tells athletic directors to work through five questions before adding a sport: student interest, state sanctioning, local competition, facilities, and Title IX.
Gauging student interest
Start with your golfers. The students already on your golf roster are the ones missing out on valuable practice time, and they will tell you quickly whether a winter season sounds interesting to them.
From there, the usual in-school recruitment tools all work:
- Interest posters in the hallways
- A Google Form linked from the poster or an announcement
- Morning announcements
- A school-wide email or family update
- An interest meeting for anyone curious
We have interest posters and form templates ready to go. Reach out and our team will help you get them in front of your students.
An interest meeting tells you who shows up rather than who clicked. Golf sim also draws students from outside the golf roster, so run the form school-wide rather than only through the athletics list.
State sanctioning
Fenworks Golf Sim runs as a high-tech, STEM-connected activity. In most buildings it lives alongside drone racing rather than inside the official sanctioned athletics calendar, operating similarly to an organized club.
Local competition
The usual problem with a new activity is that not many of your neighbors are running the same activity, so every match costs you a bus and a half day of class.
You skip all of that with a golf sim. Your golfers play one 18-hole round a week on their own schedule, submit the score through our competition platform, and get ranked against your neighboring golfers in our winter league.
Facilities
A simulator needs roughly 10 feet of ceiling and 15 feet of width, with depth depending on the unit. Rooms that tend to work:
- Auxiliary and practice gyms
- Wrestling and multipurpose rooms
- Stage and backstage space
- Former shop or ag classrooms
Portable inflatable enclosures pack into a case when the room is needed for something else.
A school can also run its first winter through a local course or indoor golf facility, which costs a fraction of a build. We walk through the full range in our guide on what a golf simulator costs a high school.
Title IX
Fenworks runs separate boys and girls leagues, and one school registration covers every eligible student on your roster.
How that fits your school’s overall Title IX picture depends on your state and your current program mix. Ask your state athletic or activities association before you write your program proposal.
Making the case to your administration
The cost is smaller than most expect. An entry level setup runs about $1,500, and a school that uses a local facility for its first winter spends a fraction of that.
Funding does not have to come from the athletics budget either. We work with Scoreboard, Hometown, and Money Dolly on fundraising, and we help schools structure a sponsorship ask with a local course or business. A simulator also qualifies for STEM or technology funding in a lot of districts, which is often an easier line to reach than athletics.
For your golfers it is off-season practice and competition through the months they currently lose. For the school it keeps golfers engaged who might otherwise drift, and it opens a winter activity to students who were never on the golf roster.
Registration runs November 30 to December 18 and the season runs January 15 to February 19, closing with a Hybrid Regional State Tournament.
Working with us
Tell us about your school and our team will get back to you. The first thing we will work out with you is equipment, whether that is a build on campus, a unit you already own, or time at a local facility.
From there you get your season information and school registration, along with guidance on simulator setup and an introduction to the Fenworks All-In-One Competition Platform.
Then your golfers compete. We handle the officiating, the scheduling, and any rule or tech question that comes up during the season.
Where to start
Registration for the 2026-27 season runs November 30 to December 18. You can find the season details on our Golf Simulator League page! 🐺