The "Spoon" was a name given to the club that we now know as the 3 or 4 wood. A lot of clubs were given names, usually old Scottish words, before golf clubs started to be numbered for example:

Baffy spoon - the old term for a wooden club, again similar to the 3 wood and given the name because of its lofted shape.

Cleek - equivalent to a 2 iron, it had a narrow thin face.

Mashie - equivalent to the 5 iron

Mashie Niblick - equivalent to the 7 iron

Niblick - equivalent to the 9 iron and generally used to get out of the rough

Spade Mashie - deep faced club used for bunker play before Gene Saracen invented the 'sand wedge' in the early 1930's.

You sometimes read these names when looking through old golf books or magazines particulary the great short golf stories written by PG Wodehouse. The venerable golf commentator Peter Alliss will throw in an old club reference for fun when he is doing his stuff on the box.

Cheers, Boynie.