by Sean L | Sep 22, 2025 | news
The days are getting shorter. The temperatures are dropping. The leaves are turning pretty colours and covering the fairways. It’s that time of year. Fall is coming. And what does that mean? Less and less time and opportunity to golf outdoors.
You might think that means it’s time to pack the clubs away until that one really nice day in March when everyone crowds onto the still soggy golf courses at once. But what if we told you (and reminded some of our more regular patrons) that your clubs can stay in use year round with Prime Golf’s indoor golf facility?
That’s right. You can stay golfing almost every day of the year on our Trackman powered simulator bays. With numerous training modes, ranges, over 400 real world courses mapped and available, and fun mini games for the family, your golf game can continue on uninterrupted by the rainy, wet winters we get here on the West Coast.
Not convinced? Here are seven key reasons why the beginning of fall is the time to start switching to indoor golf.
1) The best way to extend your season
You might be used to packing the clubs away for the winter once the rain and short days start. But what if we reminded you, that doesn’t have to be the case. Our facility is open year-round with hours extending past sundown.
With PGA of Canada certified instructors to guide you through lessons and a full build shop that can get your clubs fixed, prepped, and ready, the golf season never has to end!
2) Never having to worry about the weather
Island summers are great. Usually not too absurdly hot, maybe only have a handful of rainy days through July and August, with June and September often providing plenty of sun. Generally, great conditions for outdoor golf.
But once the fall rolls around, those temperatures start dropping. The clouds start rolling in. And the skies start dumping rain on the area on a regular basis.
You know where you don’t have to worry about that? Here at Prime Golf. Never will you have to worry about frost delays in the morning, cancelling due to rain, or fall wind storms making even a sunny day miserable on the course. We have perfect weather each and every day so you never need to make a last minute pivot to your golf outing.
3) The most meaningful way to practice
Nothing can beat actually hitting a ball off of the ground and seeing what happens. But what is pretty close, and provides a lot more data to analyze your game, is a practice session here at Prime Golf.
Our Trackman powered simulators provide real-time feedback to let you know what is going on with your swing.
You can also book in a lesson with our talented instructors who can help you understand the barrage of numbers being thrown at you in your session.
They can give you the knowledge and coaching you need to practice and improve your golf game.
4) The easiest way to get fitted and try out new gear
Club fittings are for everyone. All levels of golfers will benefit from a properly fit set of clubs. This is a service we take pride in offering here at Prime Golf as we can test you out on a variety of different club configurations and shaft/club head combinations to find the best set-up for you.
There is no best time to do this, but as the weather starts turning and its harder to get onto the course, why not move inside and start getting your gear set up for the next season? Between sales on last year’s product making things a bit more affordable and companies starting to release their fresh new gear for the next year, there are so many options and you are bound to find something that will help shave some strokes off of your score.
5) The weekend outing with the crew can keep on happening all year
The weekly tradition. A weekend afternoon spent out on the course with the crew. Something to enjoy, something to look forward to, and a great way to stay connected.
But when the weekend round needs to stop until the spring, what will replace that? Well, how about more golf. Don’t stop the weekend rounds, just move it inside. Our spacious simulator bays have the seating and space you need to bring your crew and hang out over a round of golf, just like you could outdoors!
6) Try out new courses
Our Trackman-powered simulator bays feature over 400 courses. You will never run out of options. When you can’t get outside to try out new courses, bring it indoors to try out some places you might otherwise never get to see. We have courses from all over the world. Some Canadian favourites, like Cabot Cliffs in Nova Scotia and Fairmont Chateau in Whister. A bunch of PGA Tour stops, like Bethpage Black, Bandon Dunes, and Royal Portrush. And some world renowned places that everyone knows like Pebble Beach and St. Andrews.
Don’t worry about planning expensive golf trips in the offseason to hope for a good weather round. Bring it indoors and try the courses out here, where it will always be perfect weather.
7) Play while you watch
There may not be a big tournament on every single weekend, but when there is, you can bet that we will have it on in our lounge. Like this week’s Ryder Cup, for example.
What better than playing a round at Bethpage Black while watching the Ryder Cup, being played at Bethpage Black? Or coming in for a round over Master’s weekend to watch while you golf?
You can do that here at Prime Golf. We’ve got the feed and the audio ready. It just needs the sound of your club hitting the ball to complete the ambiance.
Fall is the best time to transition your game back to indoor golf at Prime Golf. Book in your bay now and check out what we have to offer at our facility!
by Sean L | Sep 4, 2025 | news
September is set to be a huge month in the world of golf with the 2025 Ryder Cup set to take place at the end of the month! From September 26-28, some of the best golfers in the world will converge in New York to play at Bethpage Black, one of the most difficult courses in the world.
And wouldn’t you know it, Bethpage Black is also available on our Trackman simulators?
What does this mean for you? Well, we’ve got an exciting month of competitions planned and we are sure to have the action playing in our lounge during the tournament.
Book in at any time during the month of September and you will be able to participate in our tournament! All you have to do is sign in to your Trackman account, choose the tournament from the main menu, and play the round to submit your score.
This month, we have a special format. We are featuring a 2-person scramble! Bring in your best golf buddy between now and September 14 to play round 1. Between September 15 and September 24 to play round 2. And, your final round showdown for the championship between September 25 and 30.
As an added bonus, we will have a long drive contest running at the same time on Hole 13, and a closest to the pin competition on Hole 8, which you can enter during your round!
Book your times now through the month to cover all three rounds!
by Sean L | Jun 22, 2025 | news
We get it. The summer months have rolled around, it’s bright out until almost 10pm, sun is shining, the weather is perfect. So the appeal to go to the course for a round or even a quick 9 after work is strong.
But is that your only option? I mean, on a blistering summer afternoon, wouldn’t it be nice to be out of the sun for a few minutes? Or maybe being packed in group after group after group and waiting to tee off on every hole is getting frustrating?
Whatever your reasons may be, we here at Prime Golf are more than happy to host your round all summer long! Need more convincing? Here are five key reasons why you should choose indoor golf, even in the summer months.
1) Beat the heat
It is one of the benefits, but also a drawback of the middle of the summer months. The heat. Sometimes its great, especially if you are relaxing in the shade or on the water. But, it can also be a bit of a deterrent when you want to be active. Specifically, when you get caught out in the sun on a course with minimal shade in the middle of a summer afternoon. That can turn a round into a bit of a grind.
Here is where Prime Golf comes in. Indoor golf in a climate controlled environment. No bugs, no sunscreen, no dehydration, maximum comfort.
2) No waiting to hit
We’ve all experienced it. The train of golf carts at the sixth tee all waiting to tee off. What was supposed to be a four hour round has suddenly turned into five as you now have to wait to take nearly every shot.
You know where that won’t be an issue? Prime Golf. You’ll be in your own private bay playing on a course with no one else but your group on it. No waiting, no teeing off in front of 10 other people, and you can pace your round your way. Even if that means finishing 18 holes in an hour.
3) Play any course, any time
As nice as it is to have consistent courses to see how your game changes over time, sometimes it is nice to switch things up and play on some world renowned courses with unique challenges.
Prime Golf has over 400 courses available for you to choose from on any given day. Far exceeding the local selection. That includes countless PGA Tour stops, like Oakmont Country Club, Quail Hollow Club, Muirfield Village Golf Resort, and plenty more.
You can even find some iconic British Columbia based courses like Big Sky Golf Club over in Squamish.
At Prime Golf, you will never run out of new and unique places to play as courses are added constantly to our simulators.
4) Meaningful practice
Sure, actually doing the thing is the best practice there is. But sometimes you need deeper insights into your game in order to find the things that need improving on. That’s something you can accomplish here at Prime Golf. Our simulator bays are equipped with instant access to plenty of data points and swing feedback to help you understand your game at a deeper level.
Need a hand understanding what you’re looking at? We’ve got you covered. Book a lesson with one of our PGA of Canada certified instructors to give you a detailed path forward to improving your game.
5) Game modes that are fun for the whole family
We don’t just have golf courses on our simulators, we have plenty of other practice modes and, most notably, mini games that provide fun for the whole family. If you’ve been looking for somewhere to play mini-golf in Nanaimo, you might be having a hard time finding it. Our simulators have multiple mini-golf courses to bring the family in for some summer afternoon fun!
As you can see, even in the summer months when the draw is to go outside, there are plenty of reasons to choose indoor golf and add some time at Prime Golf to your routine. We hope to see you stop by soon!
by Sean L | May 8, 2025 | news
It is one of the most important parts of our game to train, but also one of the most neglected. Because, let’s face it, the driver gets most of our attention at the range. But most of our shots in any given round are from within 100 yards, meaning those wedges and that short game is something that needs more attention if you want to Prime your Game.
Wedge play requires a different focus than most other clubs or shots. The finesse and soft touch required from around the green is an entirely different place of attention than other clubs that we spend our time trying to hit farther and farther.
But, how exactly does one focus a training session on just wedges? We’ve got some tips for you to try out the next time you’re booked in here at Prime Golf!
1) Clock-face wedge shot drill
One of the trickiest parts of perfecting your short game is learning how hard and how far all of your shots need to go. Nothing is worse than finding yourself with a 50-yard approach shot but only hitting it 35 and needing a second chip to get it on the green. One way to work around this and truly learn distance control and estimation with your wedges is the clock face drill.
How to do this drill
Line yourself up in a bay here at Prime Golf on target practice or driving range mode, depending if you want to hit at pins or not. Then, grab your wedges and begin hitting shots with the same club. Treating 6 o’clock as where the golf ball is and 12 o’clock as directly above your head, pick spots on the clock to reach in your backswing and follow through, such as using 8 and 4 for shorter shorts and 10 and 2 for longer ones. Hit shots on repeat with that same swing path to nail down how far you can consistently hit that shot. And repeat this exercise for each of your wedges.
With some practice, you should begin to become better at making good, consistent contact with your wedges as well as know exactly which club to pull out of your bag and swing to replicate at different distances.
2) Launch angle practice
Generally, your wedges will be the clubs that get the most height. But sometimes, you need to find a way to hit a wedge but at different heights. Maybe you’re chipping out from near a tree or trying to hit a rolling shot up the fairway. Regardless of your reason, this is a situation where you can take advantage of the launch angle data on our Trackman simulators. If you can learn how to hit different angle wedge shots, you add another dynamic to your game that might help you shave a few strokes off of your score.
How to do this drill?
Grab a wedge and choose a distance you can regularly hit with that club. This would be good to do after the previous drill where you learn distance control with your wedges. Hit about 5-10 shots consistently to that target in the distance. You can do this easily in target practice mode on Trackman, where you can choose a target and tee spot placing you that distance from the pin.
From there, practice tweaking your swing to see the impact it has on the launch angle and flight path of your shot. Try putting the ball forward in your stance to hit it higher, but with less roll. And vice versa for lower wedge shots with the ball farther back in your stance.
Other tweaks you can test out to see the impact are opening and closing the clubface and the amount of hinging in your wrists.
Being able to alter the launch angle of your wedge shots will give you more tools to optimize your short game.
3) Progressive Distance and Accuracy Drill
Not only is it important to know the distances of your wedges, but you also need to be able to hit them reliably at the target. This drill combines both distance control and accuracy. What you will be doing is setting up situations for yourself to hit consistent shots at a selected target at selected distances, moving farther and farther away as you progress. This way, you will minimize the amount of second approach shots you need because the first one was short or off target.
How to do this drill?
Pick your wedge and set a target at whatever distance away you want, starting closer to the pin. Say, begin at 15 yards away. Your goal is to hit a predetermined amount of shots within a certain distance of your target, 3 of 5 shots within 4 feet, for example. Once you accomplish that, you can move farther away and repeat the drill from 25, 35, 45 yards, and so on.
Doing this will help you understand your short game better with a more accurate reading of your distances, as well as helping you work out inconsistencies in your swing to improve your contact and accuracy.
More advanced versions of this drill can work in launch angle practice and spin rate practice, as well.
With this new knowledge, you should be ready to start priming your game! Book in a simulator bay to give your wedges some practice.
by Sean L | Apr 24, 2025 | news
When you’re out on the course, you want to be putting into place all the improvements and changes you’re learning, not spending the time on drills. It’s difficult to practice with certain clubs and certain shots when you’re in a different situation each shot and need to still play a round of golf.
But did you know there is a place where you can just set up and specifically practice certain things repeatedly so that when you go to the course you can play your round? That’s right here at Prime Golf.
Our Trackman simulators have countless modes for you to select from, including target practice, a virtual driving range, and a practice mode that will allow you hit specific shots on repeat and perform extensive shot analysis in an instant. Each shot in any of these modes will provide you with shot data to help you Prime your Game.
But what are some specific drills you can do here at Prime Golf? Aside from booking a lesson with one of our PGA of Canada, Class A certified instructors, anyways.
Well, there are a bunch of drills and practice exercises that you can do yourself in a session on one of our simulators.
Here are some of the best!
1) One-Club Challenge
Test the versatility of your clubs by using the same club for every shot on a hole. You will have to approach the game from a more strategic standpoint in your shot placement as well as get some practice with partial swings and distance control.
To level up this drill, play multiple holes with just that same club. This drill goes hand-in-hand with some of the others in this list as you learn to control distance with partial swings.
2) Target Practice Drill
On target practice mode, hit repeated shots towards targets to get a sense of how each of your clubs play. Doing this will also be a great test for developing consistency in your ball striking as you hit the same shot over and over. This will help you understand your distance and variation with each club and help you play smarter on the course.
3) Wedge Distance Control
Get some real practice in with hitting your wedges and learning the distance you get from each. This is a perfect drill to learn how to hit partial swings at 25, 50, and 75 percent with your short irons and wedges. Your short game will thank you as you get more comfortable in close.
4) Club Settings Comparison
Learn how different shafts, club heads, lies, and lofts will impact your game. Doing so in a controlled environment like Prime Golf will help you find the optimal settings for your gear. With the data provided on our simulators, you will know exactly which configuration worked best instantly by looking at club speed, ball speed, launch angles, and smash factor, for starters.
You can take that information, adjust your gear, and maximize your performance on the course.
5) Swing Speed Drill
Generally speaking, higher club speed can lead to longer distances. But it’s not as simple as that. Simply swinging harder and faster may help add distance, sometimes. But it is also running the risk of overswinging and making poor contact as you sacrifice form for speed.
What you can practice on our simulator bays is improving the quality of your swing at lower speeds and slowly increase the speed to learn how to make better contact while swinging faster.
The opportunities are endless for drills and practice exercises that you can do at Prime Golf.
Book a bay today to see how it can help you improve your golf game!
by Sean L | Mar 26, 2025 | news, Trackman Information
Stepping up to our Trackman-powered golf simulators can be exciting, but seeing a screen full of numbers and unfamiliar terms might feel overwhelming, especially if you’re new to indoor golf. That’s where we come in! At Prime Golf, we’re here to help you decode your data and use it to improve your game.
Every shot you take in our simulator bays generates valuable insights, from club and ball speed to spin rate and club path angle. To help you make the most of your session, we’ve broken down 7 key metrics that will elevate your understanding and performance of the presented data.
1) Club Speed
Quite simply, club speed is the speed at which the club head is moving immediately prior to impact. Our simulators will track this and display the linear speed, in miles per hour, of the centre of the club head before impacting the golf ball. This metric is one of the more important ones when trying to influence a golfer’s distance. As little as a one mile per hour increase in club speed can equal up to three extra yards on one’s shot. That is why club speed is one that gets a lot of attention when you want to try and increase your shot distance.
It’s not always a given that simply increasing club speed will increase distance. Have you ever been told to slow down the swing when your shots are getting errant? It boils down to that. Just trying to swing harder and faster can be detrimental to the quality of your contact with the ball, leading to decreased accuracy and sometimes even decreased distance. There is a balance to find, one that would be easiest to find with one of our in-house instructors.
2) Ball Speed
Similar to club speed, ball speed is the speed at which the ball is moving shortly after being impacted by the club. The major significance of this metric is that it can be an indicator of swing problems if your club speed and ball speed are out of whack. Someone can have an extremely high club speed, but if they aren’t making good contact with the ball, ball speed will be lower than one might expect. This can tell us that solid contact is not being made, and a golfer is losing a ton of power in their swing as a result. This could be something off in the swing plane or hitting the ball off of the heel or toe of the club, for example.
3) Launch Angle
Launch angle is one of the major factors determining the distance and height of a shot. It is the angle, relative to the horizon, of the movement of the ball immediately after contact with the club. You might be familiar with the idea of launch angle, as it comes into play when determining which iron to hit and many drivers come with a listed, if not adjustable, club face angle which impacts launch angle.
Based on one’s club speed and ball speed, launch angle is another swing factor that should be monitored and adjusted, as it is crucial to maximizing distance on shots for one to find the ideal clubs and club face orientation.
Launch angle is also a skill for golfers to develop as they learn to shape their shots. It is something that can be manipulated to purposely shoot higher or lower, depending on what the situation calls for and what the course conditions are like. On a windy day, for example, it would be wise to play with a lower launch angle to avoid the impact of the wind on a high shot.
4) Spin Rate
The spin rate is the rate, counted in revolutions per minute, that the ball rotates immediately after leaving the club head. It is one of the more overlooked factors affecting one’s ball flight and flight path, but one of the most impactful. For some, spin rate will be a glimpse into why their shots stray off target, as a high spin rate off of a drive could be indicative of swing issues leading to a slice or hook. For others, spin rate can be tweaked and optimized as a tool to assist with shot shaping if they can manipulate an approach shot with backspin.
Ideally, spin rate and launch angle work together to lead to the optimal shot type for each golfer. A session with an instructor would help find what that looks like for you, and what could be tweaked to help you achieve that.
5) Club Path
Club path is the horizontal direction of the club head at the time of impact. It is measured relative to the target line, and the value is the angle to the right or left of the target that the club head is travelling. The significance of the club path is one of the crucial factors in determining the direction of a shot. A club path of zero typically indicates a straight shot, while a positive or negative value would be used to trigger a draw or fade.
Inconsistencies or extreme values in the club path category can be one of the biggest factors impacting the quality of one’s shots. Fine tuning it to one’s game is important to allow golfers to find a swing that works for them and the game they want to play.
6) Carry Distance
How often do you get to a situation on the course, whether it be a tee shot, lay-up, or approach shot, and you are stuck deciding which club to hit? This is where a session on our simulators to get data on your carry distance will come in handy.
It is one of the most invaluable tools to helping golfers understand their game, but it is often one that is given little attention. Knowing exactly how far you can expect your shot to carry, which is the distance in a straight line that the ball will travel from where it was hit to the point at which it crosses below the height it was hit from, helps optimize your game. If you know how far your clubs go, even better if you test them out under different wind conditions, you will not be coming up short or overshooting the green when you shouldn’t have. If you know how hard to hit your approach shot, your short game will prosper.
A full session just hitting the same clubs over and over under different conditions will help prime your game with the knowledge you need to boost your confidence.
7) Smash Factor
This is probably the most fun sounding metric on the list. Smash factor, simply, can be viewed as a metric to measure how hard the ball is hit. The higher the smash, the harder the shot. But, more specifically, it is a measure of how efficient and effective one’s swing is. It takes the club speed divided by the ball speed to provide a number indicating how much of the energy from the swing is transferred into the ball on impact. If the smash factor is lower than expected given the club speed, then an instructor can help you look into other factors to find where the inefficiency in your swing lies. It could be one of the other metrics on this list leading to poor contact or it could be the equipment itself that is not the right fit for you.
Elevate Your Game at Prime Golf
Understanding these key metrics is the first step to improving your game. Whether you’re here to fine-tune your swing, dial in your distances, or get professional coaching, our Trackman-powered simulators provide the insights you need to play better, smarter golf.
Ready to take your game to the next level? Book a session at Prime Golf today!
