I grew up in Arlington Heights, IL, so when Golf VX invited MyGolfSpy out to check out its new location there, I was already interested. Then they told me I’d get to spend some time with Quantum, their new premium simulator.
Didn’t have to ask me twice.
I knew enough about Golf VX going in to know what they did and that Quantum was supposed to be something pretty special. Beyond that, I intentionally tried not to learn too much. I wanted to walk in, grab a club and experience it without already knowing exactly what I was supposed to be impressed by.
Turns out there was plenty.
Back Home
Quantum was the reason for my visit so I won’t spend too much time on Golf VX Arlington Heights itself. But indulge the hometown guy for a minute because the place is pretty damn cool.
There are 12 simulator bays, a huge bar sitting in the middle of everything and an open entertainment area with massive ceilings and screens everywhere. NFL, NBA, NHL, MLB, international soccer, you name it. I could easily see coming here for a league, with friends, for an event or just to get some swings in.
And, of course, there are the Bears.
As I write this, Arlington Heights remains one of the possibilities in the Bears’ seemingly never-ending stadium saga. Having grown up here, I’m still holding out hope that someday a Bears Sunday includes a little Golf VX before or after the game.
Anyway, I wasn’t there to scout the potential neighborhood for the Bears.
I was there to try Quantum.
Meet Quantum
Sam from Golf VX led me away from the main area and into a smaller private room in the back where Quantum currently lives.
My first impression?
It looked like a really nice simulator.
You notice the different hitting surfaces. The hardware looks premium. Everything feels modern and appropriately high-end. But if you’ve spent enough time around indoor golf, simply looking at Quantum doesn’t prepare you for what’s different about it.
You have to start hitting balls.
Watching Sam demonstrate everything, I understood what he was showing me. Once I grabbed a club and started playing, I understood why it mattered.
The Speed Is The Thing
Yes, the floor moves. We’ll get there.
What got me first was how immediate everything felt.
Quantum uses 4,000-frame-per-second sensors to track the ball and club, a 436-fps swing camera and captures more than 28 data points. Golf VX says the response time from swing to screen is 15 milliseconds.
Those numbers are impressive but the experience is easier to explain.
There’s a tiny disconnect with a lot of sim golf. You make a swing, you feel what happened and then the sim gives you the result. It might not be a long delay but your brain has already started moving on.
With Quantum, I’d hit the ball and the information was simply there.
I hadn’t really considered latency something I cared much about. After experiencing almost none of it, I realized how much I did.
For someone playing 18 with a few buddies, that might be relatively minor. If you’re trying to work on your game, I think it’s a much bigger deal. What I had just felt in my hands and body was still fresh when the ball flight, swing and data appeared in front of me.
The swing camera adds another layer. Over multiple shots and holes, I could see my swing, the analytics behind it and a broader assessment of what I was doing well, what was average and what needed some help.
(there was plenty in that last category, unfortunately)
None of those practice and coaching tools are completely foreign to sim golf. What I liked was how intuitively everything worked together and, particularly, how quickly it came back to me.
There was another feature I didn’t expect to care much about: the control pad at your feet.
Aim. Tee height. Reload a ball. Take a mulligan. You can handle the basic navigation without walking back and forth to a screen.
On paper, I probably wouldn’t have given it a second thought. In practice, it’s sweet.
It’s like one of those features in a new car that initially seems nice to have and six months later you can’t imagine not having it. You’re standing there with a club in your hands, you’re in the flow of playing and you never really have to leave it.
Small thing. Much more fluid experience.
Playing The Lie
OK, now we can talk about the floor.
Quantum uses a 15-axis moving platform capable of recreating more than 19,000 terrain variations. If your ball finishes above your feet, your next shot can be above your feet. Same with downhill, uphill and sidehill lies.
If you’ve watched TGL and seen the way technology is used to create changing slopes and undulations, the concept will feel familiar.
It’s one thing to watch the platform move. It’s another when you’ve hit the previous shot and now have to stand on the lie you just created.
That distinction became real to me.
Sim technology has become incredibly good at telling us what happened to the shot we just hit.
Quantum also makes you deal with what happens next.
And that goes beyond the floor.
Quantum has different hitting surfaces for fairway, rough and bunker lies. No, you’re not blasting actual sand around somebody’s house, but the surfaces are meaningfully different. The rough grabs the club differently than the fairway. The bunker surface creates a different interaction again.
Early on, I mostly thought this was cool.
By the second or third hole, I realized I was trying way harder to hit fairways because I didn’t want to play off the other surfaces.
That was probably the moment the whole thing clicked for me.
On most sims, I can miss a virtual fairway, get a graphic telling me I’m in the rough and then walk up to the same flat mat and hit the next shot.
With Quantum, the mistake follows you. Maybe the surface changes. Maybe your stance changes. Often both.
Bad shot. Bad lie.
Welcome to golf.
Where The Terrain Matters
Golf VX will understandably talk about those 19,000-plus terrain variations. It’s a hell of a number and Quantum can put you into some pretty wild positions.
For me, though, the real value isn’t seeing how extreme a lie I can create.
If I had one of these at home, I’d probably spend much more time with the subtle stuff: the ball a little above my feet, a slightly downhill lie, a little uphill, rough instead of fairway.
Those are shots we encounter constantly on a golf course and almost never practice indoors.
The dramatic sidehill lie shows you what the technology can do.
The little imperfections are what would make me want to use it regularly.
And that gets at the larger thing I liked about Quantum. The immediate feedback connects the swing I just made to the information I’m seeing. The moving platform and different surfaces connect that shot to the one I have to hit next.
The round starts to feel connected in a way sim golf often doesn’t.
Can You Go Back?
When my friends asked me about Quantum afterward, I told them it was next level.
I still think that’s the simplest answer.
I’ve always viewed simulator golf through two lenses. It can be entertainment—a way to play Pebble Beach with your buddies in January and have a couple of beers – or it can be a way for someone like me, living in Chicago, to keep swinging when playing actual golf isn’t an option.
Quantum started to blur that line.
The instantaneous feedback makes it a legit practice tool. The changing terrain and surfaces make playing a course feel considerably more connected from one shot to the next. And if you just want to play, there are 4K graphics, more than 380 courses and plenty of games and challenges.
I joked afterward that going back to a regular simulator felt a little like flying private and then being handed a coach boarding pass for seat 32B.
That’s obviously ridiculous.
It’s also kind of true.
Quantum is a premium product and, at least right now, it’s being treated that way. If you’re shopping at that end of the simulator market – particularly if you’re looking for something you can use to actually work on your game – I would absolutely want to experience this before making a decision.
I went in expecting a better golf simulator.
I came away feeling like I’d gotten a glimpse at where sim golf is headed.
For a Chicago golfer staring down another winter indoors, that’s a pretty big leap.
And, unfortunately for every regular simulator I use from here on out, now I know what I’m missing.
The post I Tried Golf VX’s Quantum Simulator. It Ruined Regular Sim Golf For Me. appeared first on MyGolfSpy.
Article Link: https://mygolfspy.com/news-opinion/i-tried-golf-vxs-quantum-simulator-it-ruined-regular-sim-golf-for-me/