True Temper's 'Iron Byron' Takes Place in World Golf Hall of Fame

Memphis, TN …A private gathering was held Monday night at the World Golf Hall of Fame in St. Augustine, Florida, to officially open its newest exhibit entitled Byron Nelson: A Champion… A Gentleman. The exhibit features various pieces of memorabilia including photographs, trophies and personal artifacts tracing the career of Byron Nelson, one of the greatest champions and ambassadors the game of golf has ever known. A focal point of the display is the True Temper® club testing robot better known as “Iron Byron” because it was designed to replicate the timeless swing of the great Lord Byron.

“True Temper is very pleased to be a part of an exhibit honoring not only a great man and champion, btt a true golfing pioneer,” states Scott Hennessy, President / CEO of True Temper Sports. “By assisting our company in the development of the robot, his fluid swing helped to set the standard for evaluation in shaft design for decades to come.”

Born out of a collaborative effort between the Ohio-based Battelle Memorial Institute and True Temper Sports in 1964, the machine was designed to provide comparative shaft data in a controlled environment. “Until the introduction of Iron Byron, 100% of dynamic shaft testing was entirely subjective,” states Bob Bush, original technical services manager of the swing robot project. “The robot provided a repeatable swing allowing us to quantify performance from one shaft to the next. To this day, even the best golfers in the world can’t provide this level of consistency.”

True Temper chose Byron Nelson as the model swing after studying high speed photography of numerous PGA Tour players and scratch amateurs of the time. Mr. Nelson’s swing proved to be the most efficient wasting little energy from the top of the swing through impact. “There is one major difference between Mr. Nelson and the robot,” continues Mr. Hennessy laughingly. “Iron Byron putts with exactly the same stroke as he drives.”

After two years of development and a cost in excess of $250K, the robot was introduced in 1966 simply as the “Golf Club Testing Device”. “We were trying to emphasize that the machine was a true research tool, not a marketing novelty,” Bob Bush explains. “Not until several years later did the device take on the lasting moniker ‘Iron Byron’.”

One of the key features of the robot was its ability to mimic the energy transfer present in the golf swing. “Most golfers deliver more energy at impact than at the beginning of the downswing,” adds Graeme Horwood, VP of Engineering. “Through the incorporation of compressed air and a series of pneumatic valves, Iron Byron is able to replicate this action and closely mirror a human’s energy transfer.”

For the last four decades, Iron Byron has provided critical feedback for filely every major equipment manufacturer. It also has been used to determine equipment standards by the United States Golf Association, the governing body of the game of golf. Continues Scott Hennessy, “One of Iron Byron’s proudest achievements is that it has been used by the USGA to grow and protect the game of golf.”

Byron Nelson trusted True Temper shafts throughout his illustrious career. He is most widely known for his unprecedented 1945 season in which he claimed 11 consecutive wins on his way to 18 titles for the year. The exhibit is located in the World Golf Hall of Fame, which is at World Golf Village in St. Augustine, FL. For more information, call 904-940-4123 or visit www.worldgolfhalloffame.org.

True Temper Sports is the leading manufacturer of golf shafts in the world and is consistently the number one shaft on all professional tours globally. The Company markets a complete line of shafts under the True Temper and Grafalloy shaft brands, and sells these brands in over thirty countries throughout the world. True Temper Sports employs over 800 people in ten facilities located in the United States, Europe, Japan, China and Australia.