photo by: Submitted

Joel Kaczor, an owner of Swing365 Lawrence, tees up on a simulator at the business, 3300 Bob Billings Parkway.

The game of golf will cause you to suggest strange things — like digging up the floor of your home’s basement.

Yes, Rebecca Spriggs thought that was odd — and not the least bit enticing — when her husband, Terry, mentioned the possibility a few years ago. In fairness, though, Rebecca hadn’t heard the full pitch. The minor excavation — just a few feet deep, perhaps — could make Terry’s golf drives straighter and longer.

“I’m like, ‘what?'” Rebecca recalls.

What if I told you it could really improve iron play as well?

The latest technology in golf simulators can do all of that and more. With the advanced cameras and software systems, golf simulators not only will allow you to virtually play the most famous courses in the world, but they also have become major training tools that instantaneously provide analytics like club speed, ball speed, launch angle and even something called a “smash factor” that measures your overall swing efficiency.

Terry, an avid golfer, recognized the power of simulators early. He also recognized that the ceiling in this home’s basement was too short to accommodate the state-of-the-art machine he had his eye on.

But as I say after my sixth putt on a par 3: Good things come to those who wait. Lawrence residents Terry and Rebecca Spriggs now have not one, but two high tech golf simulators.

No, of course, they are not in their basement. They are in a Lawrence shopping center, and what makes them really unique is that you can use them any day of the year, any time of the day or night.

The couple — along with business partner Joel Kaczor — recently opened Swing365 Lawrence in the shopping center near the northeast corner of Bob Billings Parkway and Kasold Drive in west Lawrence.

photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World

Rebecca Spriggs, an owner of Swing365 Lawrence, 3300 Bob Billings Parkway, shows the computer that members use to start a simulator session.

The business operates on a membership model. People pay a monthly fee to access the center, and are given an app for the phone that allows them to make reservations and unlock the door to the building and its simulators 24/7.

Inside the simulator room is a big screen, four high-tech cameras and a touchscreen computer that allows you to choose from dozens of courses to play, or you can choose one of several practice modes that allow you to treat the simulator like a high-tech driving range.

Plenty of golfers do the latter, and some on a daily basis during their lunch hours or on their way home from work, Rebecca said.

“It kind of depends on what your skill level is,” Rebecca said of how a member is likely to use the simulator. “Like someone who is really, really skilled and and has been playing golf for a long time might come in and try different balls to see if makes a difference and what they can do with different balls and how they can spin them because it gives you all that data.”

The cameras and sensors measure about a dozen different metrics related to ball speed, spin, height, club head movement and other factors. The simulator then graphically shows you on the big screen how far and how straight your ball went, in addition to displaying all those individual metrics. The simulator also stores that data so you can see at a glance your high and low points of the day’s session, plus see your averages for the various metrics.

photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World

The simulator at Swing 365 Lawrence provides various metrics about a user’s swing.

The cameras also film the point at which your club contacts the ball, allowing you to watch that critical part of the golf swing in slow motion.

In those regards, the simulator is more advanced than several others on the market, and that’s in part because the Swing365 franchise partners with the Full Swing golf simulator company. That’s a brand of simulator that has won over many of the top pros in the game, including Lawrence resident and U.S. Open winner Gary Woodland, and also some guy by the name of Tiger Woods.

About a dozen professional golfers are part of the Full Swing golf team, and they use the simulators for a variety of training purposes, providing the company valuable feedback. That’s great, Rebecca said, but she also noted there are plenty of other people who find the simulators great fun even if they aren’t taking it that seriously.

“Even if you don’t know what all the data points are, you can always just look at how far did the ball go,” she said.

But a strong interest in golf is a likely common trait among members, as monthly membership fees start at $149 per month. At that membership level, a member can book a session three days in advance and can have as many as three sessions booked at a time. However, one booking rule for all members is that you can only book one, 90-minute session per day. But as long as a tee time is open, you can book every day of the month, if you choose. Other membership levels — all the way up to a $600 per month corporate level — allow you to book farther in advance, thus giving you a better chance at landing the most primetime slots.

The Lawrence business has been open only about a month, and it is just the second Kansas location for Swing365, with Wichita being the first and a new one opening in Overland Park. The company was founded in Omaha and now has 22 locations in more than a dozen states.

photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World

A simulator bay at Swing365 Lawrence is shown on Aug. 27, 2025.

The trio behind the Lawrence location feels good about its chances for success, Rebecca said, because they all understand that golf is a game that requires a good amount of practice to stay sharp — or to look respectable when out on the course with friends or clients. The three owners of Lawrence’s Swing365 have been longtime members of Lawrence Country Club and active in the local golf scene.

The game of golf is seeing a surge in popularity again, and players are becoming more open to embracing simulator technology to improve their games. That embrace, by the way, isn’t just coming from the younger players, Rebecca said.

She said one of the club’s early members is an 80-year old man who had been a very good golfer for a long time, but then had to stop playing for an extended period due to an injury. He thought he could return to the course in much the same form as when he left the game, but found out he couldn’t hit the shots that he used to. That’s no fun, especially when you are playing in front of your golfing buddies.

Rebecca said the man — who will remain nameless like a member of the witness protection program — came up with a plan. He joined Swing365 and started practicing daily.

“He said, ‘I’m going to get back up to speed, and I’m not going to tell them that I’m doing this,'” Rebecca said.

In the golf world, that is a secret you are allowed to keep from your partners — unlike a new hole in your basement floor.

photo by: Chad Lawhorn/Journal-World

Swing365 Lawrence, 3300 Bob Billings Parkway, is pictured on Aug. 27, 2025.