There's one opening here in St Louis next month and the media buildup to this reminds me of when the IKEA was about to open.
I've never been to one. The thing seems more like a social gathering place with golf as the theme. From what I understand, you pay $20 an hour to rent a bay and you can hit all the balls you want. In comparison, at the 2 driving ranges I frequent, one is $5 for all the balls you can hit, plenty of places to hit off of grass, a chipping area as well. The other charges $12 for a large bucket, their grass area is only open sometimes but they have a practice bunker and a putting green.
I guess the question I have is for those that have tried them, there's a video board right in front of the golfer as they're hitting balls. Does this video have flight tracking capabilities? I was a member at a course a couple years ago that had that indoor golf thing for rainy days and during the winter. The ones that have all the famous courses, worldwide that you can play. I thought the golf course playing was a little cheesy, especially when it came to chipping and putting but if you ran it in the driving range mode it gave you lots of useful info on clubface to target line angle, ball speed, clubhead speed, ball spin rpm's, etc. It seems that might be the only redeeming reason why I'd bother to go to this place and spend that kind of money.