Tested & Reviewed: Monster Mat 2.0

You know what they say about too much of a good thing. If that good thing happens to be golf practice, the pitfall can be injury, and anyone who has racked up hours practicing golf indoors has likely experienced the aches and pains that come from hitting too many shots of mats. Or worse, they’ve been sidelined with injuries stemming from too much indoor practice. 

There’s a new golf mat that’s aimed at reducing injury while providing a life-like hitting experience, the Monster Mat 2.0 from Safeplay Golf. I’ve been testing the Monster Mat 2.0, hitting hundreds of balls per week off of it for several weeks, so let’s check out just how it performs.

The Monster Mat 2.0 is the latest offering from Safeplay Golf, and is made in the USA. You can get in various sizes, including teeline options, but the standard size is 59-by-59 inches, or about 5-feet by 5-feet. That square option is the size I’ve been testing and it allows for ample space and hitting area.

The surface is Safeplay’s Z-PRO LSR fiber that’s made to be as realistic as any hitting mat out there. 

In my experience, hitting off the Monster Mat certainly feels nice. You’ll never mistake it for hitting off actual grass, but the feel -- and sound, I might add -- are a noticeable improvement over the mat I had been using for the past couple of years. Upgrading from a cheaper mat from Amazon that made an unnatural “pop” sound with every strike, moving to the Monster Mat was a pleasant upgrade all the way around.

Underneath the turf layer is Safeplay Golf’s shock system that dampens the blow of impact. The Monster Mat 2.0 has way more give at impact than the mat I switched from, and it feels much better at impact, but I wouldn’t say it completely eliminates the aches and pains that come from repeated impact. After heavy days of use, I noticed some pain in my wrists. Fortunately, it never escalated to the point of interfering with golf or day-to-day activities, and it never lasted more than 24 hours.

I mentioned the pleasant feel at impact from the Monster Mat 2.0, and there are a couple other benefits I enjoyed as well. 

First, the mat is good at resisting twisting. I use it in my garage with nothing between the slick cement surface and the mat, and can hit dozens of shots without much repositioning. Every once in a while I’ll kick it square to recalibrate it with my screen, but overall it’s quite stable.

Next, there are four slots for tees and you can use either a rubber driving range tee or insert a real tee into a tee holder in one of the slots. 

I like the versatility of being able to tee up shots with the Monster Mat and having tee options on every edge of the mat. With tee slots on every edge, you can rotate the mat 90 degrees at any time to spread out the wear and tear and extend the life of the mat.

While I certainly prefer real tees to those rubber driving range tees we’ve all seen, I think every tee I used in a tee holder with the Monster Mat – wooden or plastic – snapped in one swing, probably about a dozen of them, so I’ll stick with the rubber tees moving forward. I’m not sure if that has to do with the cement surface my mat is on, or just the fact that there really is no give inside a tee holder, but I don’t need 1,000 half tees in my garage every month. 

Lastly, the Monster Mat doesn’t leave marks on your clubs. Those green streaks that you can almost peel off the sole of every club after a session on a normal mat are a thing of the past, which is a welcomed change for me.