In 1976, after nearly 70 years of expressed concern about how far the ball was going and the detrimental effect it was having on the game, and the many statements that something must be done, an ODS for balls was adopted for the first time. The method was to use a mechanical golfer called "Iron Byron" to hit balls, under controlled and calibrated conditions, onto a test range. The limiting distance set was that of the longest ball in the market place at the time. A test and (innovative) tolerance was added to the distance standard. The standard was 280 yards plus an overall 6% tolerance to accommodate innovations not yet in the market place. This effectively took the standard to 291.2 plus a 2% test tolerance.

Did this have the effect of stopping any further increase in distance that balls could travel or did it put a ceiling on where balls could go?

What happened was, that balls continued to improve in performance.

In the early 80's the two-piece ball traveled about the same distance as the wound ball most commonly used on the Tour but did not have the "feel" or spin properties of the wound ball. It was not until 2000 that the sudden move to the multi-layered ball really took hold on the Tour. This gave the touring players about 10 yards more on the drive, with the control and feel of a wound ball on their short game. Balls of this construction have now reached the ODS limit.

This ODS method has its limitations and was so recognized in 1976 when it was adopted. The concern was that the device used to launch balls "Iron Byron" was not easily able to launch the balls at any chosen set of launch conditions. Nor was this device effectively able to find the optimum launch conditions.

It was recognized that to find these conditions and test balls at these specific settings, it was necessary to know more about the aerodynamics of the ball and be able to measure these properties. These properties must be known for balls while traveling at various speeds and spin rates.

In 1978 it was decided to acquire a wind tunnel to measure these forces. Many problems surfaced with this "back burner" project and these were associated with trying to hold a rotating ball in a wind stream while at the same time measuring, with great accuracy, the lift and drag forces.

It was not until 1990 that the a concept was developed to fire a ball through the air for a distance of 70 feet, at different speeds and different spin rates and then measure exactly where it was with regard to a horizontal and vertical reference point in space and how long it took to get to that point. It is with this information that the drag and lift forces could be calculated. This in turn allowed for calculations to be made which accurately predicted how far the ball will travel when launched at different angles, different spin rates and different speeds. Once this could be done it was easy to determine what the optimum launch conditions are for each ball type. These conditions will vary depending on the dimple pattern, shape, size and depth as well as a number of other small details, but the bottom line is that this simulation of actual performance is now possible.

The USGA proposal is to now modify the ODS test method by measuring the aerodynamics of the ball and then simulating its overall carry and roll distance, varying the launch angle and the spin. When the maximum distance is found this will be compared with a new limit and ruled on accordingly.

In very general terms the launch angle and spin rate to obtain maximum distance (given a specific launch speed of about 160mph) are about 13 degrees and about 1500 rpm. Tiger gets about 12 degrees and about 2000 rpm. But he also launches the ball at a speed more than 180mph.

The proposed new ODS is probably the most scientifically sophisticated test procedures in the world of sports and the fairest standards if an Overall Distance Standard is necessary.

 For more on ODS, click here http://www.franklygolf.com/Speak/QA_ball_test.asp