Country Club Elite Mat (5×8) vs SIGPRO Softy Lite (4x10)

Two premium mats at nearly the same price, built differently. The Country Club Elite 5×8 from Real Feel Golf Mats is $959 at Rain or Shine, Indoor Golf Outlet and Amazon. The SIGPRO Softy LITE 4×10 is $1,049.99 at Shop Indoor Golf, at Indoor Golf Outlet and on Amazon, where Shop Indoor Golf runs its own store.

The Country Club Elite's case is the turf. Real Feel builds it for a down-and-through strike — its name for it is True Divot Action — and it holds a real wooden tee. The Softy LITE is a seamless 1-1/4 inch mat in two parts, the mat and a replaceable hitting strip, with stance areas for right- and left-handed golfers. Shop Indoor Golf says a floor launch monitor can sit on the mat itself and that the mat rolls up for storage. The catch is the tee: the strip's top layer is putting-style turf that Shop Indoor Golf says cannot take a real tee. Its thicker original Softy, about 2-1/2 inches and in sections, can.

So it comes down to how you practice. If you tee the ball on a real wooden tee and want the turf to respond like a lie, the CCE does that for less. If right- and left-handed players share the mat, or you would rather replace a worn strip than a whole mat, the Softy LITE earns its extra $91.