Golf Mulligan

Like so much of golf’s history, the origin of the term ‘Mulligan’ has been lost to the mists of time and you will find several different explanations, depending on the source you consult. So we will dispense with some of the more frivolous or fanciful heirs to the term first.

The writer Henry Beard, for example, says the expression was named after Thomas Mulligan, a rather verbose (if his writings are anything to go by) Irish aristocrat who lived at Duffnaught Hall near Lough Sclaff  – which incidentally burned to the ground in mysterious circumstances a week after he died in April 1879. Thomas was a fervent but clearly not very talented golfer who supposedly wrote: ‘Inasmuch as strokes taken after play is concluded on the 18th hole do not count towards the total entered on one’s tally card, it seems to me eminently reasonable that any shots struck before play is properly commenced with a satisfactory drive on the first tee, should be of no more consequence to one’s score than those swings which one has made by way of practice in the course of hitting balls upon the driving ground. In short, the player’s first tallied stroke for a game is the first playable drive from the first tee, and any shots made beforehand are not scored.’

It is reasonably easy to dismiss the possibility of a mulligan being named after this gentleman for three reasons. First, he died more than 80 years before the term came into popular usage, and an ocean away from the place where it was absorbed into common parlance – in 1940s America. Second, he refers to all strokes before ‘a satisfactory drive on the first tee’, which in some instances, at least among the people we play with, could mean it would take half an hour to get the opening hole underway. Thirdly, he can’t write.

An equally implausible tale suggests that Mulligan relates to upwardly socially mobile Irish-Americans, at the time when some among their number were leaving their traditional blue collar origins and joining exclusive, or rather expensive, country clubs.

The existing membership, showing all the lack of charm, grace or manners that occasionally still exists in the more snooty golf clubs, sneered at these wannabes as being incompetent golfers – although they were probably being stuck-up and snobby because that’s what they did to people they regarded as their social inferiors. So the term Mulligan became a catch-all soubriquet and an ethnic slur, rather like ‘Dutch treat,’ to denote anyone who was so bad at golf that they needed help to get started on their round.

Also unlikely, but worth repeating for oddity value, is the suggestion that some saloon bars in America would keep a Mulligan bottle on the bar. It contained a fiery mixture of pepper and spices that, when added to beer, gave it an extra kick that was reckoned to give the drinker a boost equal to the fillip that a golfer would get from being allowed an extra, or free shot. Nonsensical, contrived and far-fetched but you pays your money and takes your choice.

So, to help in your deliberations, here’s another, in our view equally improbable proposition. This suggests that the term derives from the ‘mull’, which is the small hump of grass or dirt on which golfers used to tee the ball for easier striking before the invention of modern tees. If the player whiffed the ball, or simply hit a rank bad shot, he would allegedly say to his caddy: ‘I’ll have a mull-again’ and tee up another ball. It just doesn’t sound right, does it? Surely it would be more spontaneous, and natural, to say: ‘I’ll hit another,’ or something similar.

The final unlikely etymology we have been able to track down refers to John A ‘Buddy’ Mulligan, who worked at Essex Fells Country Club in New Jersey as a locker room attendant.

Once Buddy had cleaned the locker room, if no members were around, legend has it that he would play a round of golf with Dave O’Connell, the assistant professional, and Des Sullivan, who was both a member and a budding journalist (he went on to become golf editor of the Newark Evening News).

On one of these occasions his first tee shot was so awful that he begged his playing companions for another chance, on the grounds that they had had the opportunity to practice, while he had not. They agreed and for weeks afterwards Buddy boasted to club members that he’d been able to squeeze and extra shot from two golfers who were notorious for giving nothing away to opponents.

The members, who clearly recognised a good thing when they heard it, immediately adopted the habit of giving themselves a Mulligan whenever circumstances allowed. The main reason this story rings hollow is that it is difficult to imagine a country club in the 1930s, when this incident is supposed to have occurred, allowing a locker room attendant to bunk off and play golf whenever he felt like it.

So, having dismissed the more fanciful suggestions, it is time to turn our attention to the suggested origin of the term Mulligan that has gathered the most widespread support – and is cited by the United States Golf Association (USGA) museum as the more credible among all the competing claims. But even here the waters are muddied by the fact that, despite narrowing it down to a chap called David Mulligan (who was a member of either the Country Club of Montreal, or St Lambert GC in the same city), three possible explanations are offered as to the reason why he is singled out as the likely culprit.

The first proposal is that he simply teed up another ball one day, referring to it as his ‘correction’ shot but his playing partners decided to name it after the man who first thought of the idea.

Story two says that access to the golf club was by a rutted and potholed dirt-track road and rickety bridge. Mr Mulligan was so shaken up by the experience of simply getting to the golf course (or his companions thankful that he was the driver) that they gave him an extra shot on the first hole, either in sympathy or gratitude.

The third story has it that our David overslept one day, was late getting to the tee and as a consequence of rushing, hit an appalling drive that his playing companions allowed him to take again.

Mr Mulligan was a prominent hotelier, who at one time owned the Waldorf Astoria in New York and relocated to Winged Foot GC, from where news of the shot named after him is supposed to have spread.

So there you have it, numerous possible explanations but none of them explains why the website on which you’re reading them is named after this fabled golfing expression.

Although the Mulligan is nowhere near as widely used in the UK as in America or Europe, and some diehard traditionalists believe there is no room in the game for a freebie, at Mulliganplus.com we believe that golf should be played in the essence of the Mulligan.

One of the many things we like about golf is that it offers 18 fresh starts, 18 opportunities to put the shots you have previously hit behind you and climb to the next tee, full of hope that this time you will get it right. And we all know the experience of playing like a donkey all day, giving up any belief in our ability to hit a decent shot and then nailing a screamer down the last to set up a par or even birdie. And it is this experience that will bring you back to the course the next time, demonstrating the triumph of optimism over experience that is the lot of every golfer.

There is also the fact that for most of us golf is a hobby, a pastime that we do for fun. It would be nice if, like pro golfers on Tours all over the world, we were able to warm up and hit some balls on the range before strolling to the first tee but for the majority of us this is impractical. So we turn up for our weekly game with no preparation and wonder why we so often get off to a disastrous start. Under these circumstances, if a fourball agrees to give each member a second chance at that opening drive, we don’t think they should be villified.

There is the well-known story of an American asking a Scotsman: ‘What do you call a Mulligan over here?’ and receiving the reply of either: ‘Three off the tee,’ or ‘Cheating’, depending on how sour a mood you’re in when you tell the tale but at MulliganPlus we believe in the possibility of redemption.

It’s why we want you to register your golf handicap with us and become part of our league tables, so that you can track your progress over the season.

With our news and features you can keep up-to-date but more importantly, with our equipment and instruction features we want you to continue to develop as golfers. And if all that fails, our course and holiday reviews will point you towards some great venues and bargain locations in the sun where, even if your game is not up to scratch, there are ample compensations of scenery, beauty, sunshine and much else besides.

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