There is a scene in which Bobby Jones, approaching the apotheosis of skill in the world of golfdom, just short of the world's championship, is practicing putting. The ball rolls to the edge of the cup and sticks there. Jones stares down at it, puzzled, and taps it with his club. Nothing. He begins to whack away at it. Nothing -- the ball is immovable. I kept waiting for him to wake up from a nightmare and thrust his face into the camera. He wakes up and thrusts his face into the camera.

It's 1920 and Jones, a college boy, is celebrating the last day before Prohibition takes effect. It's a rowdy, half-drunk bunch, and Jones has brought his shy new girl friend along. A chirpy blond announces to the others that "they're calling this the Jazz Age." That's just to make sure you know that this was called the Jazz Age, in case you missed the band playing jazz behind them.

If this had been shot in the 1950s it would have starred Jimmy Stewart as the self-doubting genius, overcoming his inner demons, and achieving glory before an untimely death. And instead of Clare Forlani, the girl who becomes the loving wife would have been June Allyson.

A couple of stereotypes are missing. There is no scurrilous villain who hates Bobby Jones for one reason or another. No enemy haunts him on his rounds. Instead, the villainy, such as it is, is spread a little thinly over a grandfather who demands Jones become a master of commerce. Grand Dad reforms and finally admits that golf is Bobby's proper calling, not business. Jones is not in search of some secret "swing" or technique. He's a wizard from boyhood on. But the inevitable Mammy figure, Clarissa, is present. This is upper-middle-class Georgia we're talking about. And there is the exhausted cliché of the loving wife who wants him to stay home, settle down, and continue his law practice. "You're married to a golf ball." Well, she doesn't say exactly that but you get the picture.

As Jones, I wish Jim Caviezel had a clearer grasp of his role. Maybe it's the script that undoes him but he projects weakness. There are plenty of scenes showing his suffering, sweating, trembling, face twisted with pain, but there is no coherent explanation for them. It's as if the writers had decided that the movie needed more suffering and thrust them rudely into the narrative.

Claire Forlani is okay with me. She's shackled by her role too, but who cares? She has sharp, sensual features and plump, asymmetrical lips. Yum. There are one or two winners in the supporting cast but more duds. The award for best performance (or, at any rate, most colorful role) goes to -- envelope, please -- Jeremy Northam (Applause!) as the cocky, confident, intense, but good-natured competitor, Walter Hagen, who shows up for one match in a tuxedo, still drunk from the night before.

Golfers and Scotsmen should love this.

During the course of Bobby Jones: Stroke Of Genius, Malcolm McDowell who played an Atlanta sports columnist said that we would never see the like of Bobby Jones again, that money was going to ruin sports. This was during the Roaring Twenties which was what we call The Golden Age Of Sport where athletes played in just about each sport who set a standard for those who followed. Babe Ruth in baseball, Red Grange and Knute Rockne, in football, Jack Dempsey in boxing and even a thoroughbred race horse called Man O' War all became yard sticks we measured future athletes by. But all of these were professional athletes, those who made and in some cases lost a considerable amount of salary they were paid to compete.

But Robert Tyre Jones of Atlanta, Georgia did it all as an amateur, in other words for love of the game of golf. Golf is unusual in that it allows amateur to compete with the professionals providing they eschew purses. While he competed Jones made not a dime. He kept himself firmly on the ground got a class education became a lawyer and earned money to support his family and indulge his hobby. Said hobby being the greatest golfer of his time, maybe of all time. His record of winning the Grand Slam of golf both the American and British professional opens and American and British Amateur championships is still not equaled.

And then it was over. Not only did he set out to accomplish his goal, but quit both because he had and because he had a slow degenerative spinal disorder not really diagnosed until the late Forties.

What would Malcolm McDowell's character say if he saw the salaries paid to athletes today? How would in fact Jim Cavaziel's Bobby Jones react to it now? Questions to ask yourself as you watch Stroke Of Genius and what Cavaziel does in playing a real role model for young athletes today. Cavaziel's Jones is not a Dudley Doo-Right by any means, but he's a man with a deep sense of honor and fair play and he's very real.

Bobby Jones: Stroke Of Genius, a portrait of a fine man, a great athlete, and someone we could use today in all sports.

In 1936 St. Andrews, Scotland, Bobby Jones (Jim Caviezel) returns and everybody comes out to greet him to a hero's welcome. As a child, Bobby started hitting from a young age as he rises in the world of golf. As a young man, he must tame his temper. But at the top of the game, he decides to walk away.

It's a very bland biopic. It doesn't have many dramatic turns. Director Rowdy Herrington isn't able to bring much life to this character. I'm not sure if it's the fault of the writers, the director, or the actual subject. It's like a game of golf that is more of a nice walk than anything exciting. There is about 30 minutes of Bobby as a kid which serves to forestall the start of the movie. There is just a general lack of tension.