How to Rent Your Golf Simulator Safely: Avoid Risk, Assholes, and Hassle

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April 28, 2025

Got a golf simulator to share?
Make a little money—maybe make some friends along the way too?
Guessing yes, or you’re at least curious since you’re here.
Guessing the potential risk has crossed your mind as well.
And I don’t need to guess to know that most people you’ve mentioned the idea to probably thought you were crazy for letting strangers use your sim.

It’s not for everyone, for sure.
But there’s a way to do it right.
A way to avoid strangers—and more specifically, avoid assholes.

We might not be a fit, but at minimum, we’re a reference...
And we’re working well with 200 members and counting every day.

How we make it work below—asshole avoidance included.

Step 1: Lock Down the Real Risks

Renting out your sim isn’t like listing your couch on Craigslist—
but it’s not rocket science either.

Three basic steps will keep you safe:

Form an LLC:
This shields your personal assets (house, savings) if something goes wrong.
It’s cheap—often a couple hundred bucks.
It’s quick—generally 20–30 minutes online across a couple of days.
And it gives you a legal firewall.
(Just go to your Secretary of State’s site, and skip the spammers trying to charge you to do it for you.)

For our Club Pros who haven’t done it before, we help them out along the way.

Get Commercial Insurance:
Your homeowner’s policy won’t cover a rental business.
You’ll need general liability insurance to protect your sim and anyone swinging clubs in your space.

This part can be tricky.
You won’t find a plug-and-play policy, and most local agents won’t really understand the true risk.
You’ll probably get something, but the price-to-coverage ratio will likely be steep if you go it alone.

We’ve lived (and learned) that lesson firsthand—and we’ve built a custom insurance solution for our Club Pros to make it easy:
More coverage, less money, done right.
You get it direct. No markup from us.

Require Signed Waivers:
Accidents happen—even good people shank shots.
A simple, lawyer-vetted waiver signed before anyone tees off ensures you’re covered.
(We manage that for our clubs too.)

Navigate City and HOA Regulations

There’s another type of risk to check—
making sure your space is allowed to host a club.

Two areas to check:

City Regulations:
Search for "home occupancy requirements" for your town or city.
(These are the same rules that let people run daycare centers, salons, or accounting businesses from their homes.)
They're mainly about avoiding nuisances—like too much traffic, noise, or unfamiliar foot traffic.
HOA Rules:
Similar idea. Different handbook.
HOAs usually focus on keeping the neighborhood quiet and orderly.

What you'll usually find:

You’re clearly allowed.
You’re clearly not.
The rules are vague (which is surprisingly common).

If it’s vague, keep in mind:
Running a small, local club—averaging just a couple of tee times a day—is very different from renting hourly to strangers.
And in most cases, the way these clubs operate fits really well with what the rules are designed to protect.

These steps aren’t sexy.
But they should honestly be non-negotiables.

None of it’s complicated either—but it will feel that way if you’re starting from scratch.
That’s why we help our Club Pros every step of the way—
because they’re not looking to become part-time risk managers—and we've already solved the problems they're about to face.

Step 2: Keep the Assholes Out

Paperwork outta the way, the real secret to renting your sim without losing your mind?

Make sure assholes don’t get in to begin with.

There’s some art to it—our messaging, our pricing, our vibe.
But we also take very clear, simple actions too.

We only have two rules—seriously, only two:

Treat the club like it’s your own.
Don’t be an asshole.

We stress that our goal is to make every club a member’s dream come true.
At the same time, we stress a strict one-strike-and-you're-out policy.

No laundry list of rules and restrictions like you see elsewhere.
We keep it simple. Screw it up—you’re done.

It works:

97% of our members would recommend us to others.
Zero members kicked out to date—no one’s even been close.

How We Hang the No-Assholes-Allowed Sign

Before all that though, we hang a virtual "no-assholes-allowed" sign outside every club:

A $50 initiation fee that covers a background check.

It’s a small price to pay for those who like what we’re building—
and just enough friction to annoy the ones who wouldn’t fit anyway.

If someone’s annoyed by $50 and a background check, trust us—you want them annoyed.

Honestly, for us, it’s not just gatekeeping.
It’s being transparent about what we’re building—and who it’s for.

A club where everyone respects the space and each other.

Step 3: No One’s Really a Stranger At All

Less a step—and more a key learning along the way.

Early on, "stranger danger" came up constantly.
It doesn’t anymore—and not just because our messaging got better.
Reality is cooler.

We’ve learned through experience that the people using your space aren’t strangers at all:

They’re golfers. (And while not every golfer is perfect, golfers are overwhelmingly good people.)
They’re neighbors. (They live near you. They’re already part of your community.)

You’re not opening your sim to Marketplace randos.
You’re opening it to someone who loves golf, lives where you live, and values community like you do.

When you build the right kind of club—
monthly memberships, real relationships, not hourly transactions—
you’re not renting your sim.

You’re creating a fun golf hang for good neighbors nearby.