Antique Golf Equipment

Spoons

Spoons are a large family of clubs.  They are employed in a similar way to the "Grassed Driver", but do not send the ball so far.  Their very suggestive title is taken from the great slope in their face, which distinctive characteristic is meant to enable them to raise the "gutta" to almost any height required, even out of very difficult ground.  They are very useful.  Each has its own special duty.

• Long Spoon - Used when the ball is found in long grass, in a hollow, or on a declivity;  and likewise, when the distance to the hole is just such as this club will best accomplish.  The Long Spoon handle is an inch shorter and considerably stiffer than that of the Grassed Driver, while the head is also heavier and more sloped in the face.
• Middle Spoon - A very strong club, and is especially useful in forcing a ball our of a grassy rut, and in playing a three-quarters stroke.  It is shorter, stiffer, and heavier than its elder brother.
• Short Spoon - As the name implies it is not so long as either of the preceding.  It is still more sloped in the face, and is employed in similar predicaments when the distance required is not so great.  Many players also call in its services when about a half-stroke from the hole, where others, as we shall see, use the Driving Cleek.
• Baffing Spoon -  It gets its name from the sound produced by it as it smites the ground in making the stroke.  Its use is to elevate a clear-lying ball over a hazard at a very short distance from the hole.  The face is very much spooned out.
• Wooden Niblick - It is about the same length and lie as the Long Spoon, but its head is exceedingly small and more scooped out.  It has a brass sole and is used to excavate the ball out of a rut or cup, into which the diminished head easily makes its way.  The brass sole is of great advantage for playing on hard and stony ground.

None of the old clubs really look like our modern clubs.  To match them to modern golf clubs can only be done by their face angles and the use they were put to.  All the old golf clubs were hand crafted so even a mashie by one blacksmith varied in design from another blacksmith.