How I Play Golf, by Bobby Jones No. 7: 'The Spoon'

How I Play Golf, by Bobby Jones #7: The Spoon (1931)

*** (out of 4)

This seventh entry in the series gets a boost of energy thanks to some major talent in supporting roles including Zelma O'Neal, Warren William and Walter Huston. The story has a wife (O'Neal) going to see a judge (Huston) because her husband (William) is constantly out on the golf course. The judge tells her he's too busy but that changes when he learns that Bobby Jones is on the course giving lessons. Film buffs are certainly going to enjoy this entry thanks in large part to have both Huston and William working together. Being able to see the two tough guys together was certainly a high point in the film and even the Jones educational stuff was pretty entertaining. It appears that both Huston and William are having fun and that's especially true for William who gets to throw a fit and break one of his golf clubs. O'Neal doesn't have much to do but Huston is in fun form. Jones discusses the proper way to use the spoon and also the best times to use it.

It's a mark of the respect that people in the day, people who played golf in particular held Bobby Jones in. Jones did a series of short films in the early sound days of instructions on how to play golf. That would be like Ted Williams doing short films on the art of hitting a baseball and if Williams wasn't the greatest hitter whoever lived, he certainly approached his sport with the same scientific intensity that Jones did.

Players Walter Huston, Warren William and Zelma O'Neal participate in a little story O'Neal complaining to Huston that she's lost her husband William to golf. That prompts them to go out to the course where William is playing with the great Bobby Jones who shows us the advantages of using the club known as the spoon.

Even non-golfers will like this. And the instructions are from the best.

Zelma O'Neal tells judge Walter Huston that she wants a divorce from husband Warren William. He has no time for her, but is always off playing golf with Bobby Jones. So Huston finds the two and complains that he has a problem with his game. Jones explains how the spoon can fix that.

I've never used a spoon club, and there are three very good reasons: first, they stopped calling golf clubs 'spoons' and 'mashie niblicks' and 'red-bellied sapsuckers' in the 1930s. The second reason is that the spoon has a concave face, and was outlawed by the people who make the rules for the game. The third and most important reason is that I don't play golf.

For those of you who are foolish enough to do so, nowadays you would use a 3-wood,a 5-iron or a 4-hybrid in a spoon's place. Whatever those are.