Any self respecting Duffer knows what a “mulligan” is … a “do-over” – hit a bad shot, take a mulligan and try again. Course most of us do not choose to use mulligans unless we’re playing in a 4-man scramble and we paid good money for those mulligans. After all, it’s usually for a good cause – some charity golf tournament. A mulligan in a 4 man scramble can many times be the difference in winning something or not. After all, we’ve all hit a bad shot and then replayed it only to hit that perfect shot that should have been to begin with. Most of us, however, do not count that second shot but play our first ball instead.
Ever wonder where the golf term “milligan” came from? There are many, many stories about the birth of the term and it’s quite possible that none of them are true. The USGA Museum offers several possible explanations. In one, David Mulligan of Quebec during the 1920s re-teed and hit again calling it a “correction shot” but his partners dubbed it a “mulligan”. Another story is of John “Buddy” Mulligan, known for replaying poor shots in New Jersey. A more prosaic explanation claims that back in the day saloons would place a free bottle of booze on the bar for customers to dip into. That free bottle was called a “Mulligan” and the term was adapted to the golf course to denote a “freebie” to be used by golfers.
I don’t know about you but I kind of like to believe the free bottle of booze version especially since one legend claims that the 18 holes in golf originated as a suggestion from one of the St. Andrews old-timers, who noted that it took exactly 18 shots to finish a fifth of scotch – a shot per hole. However, this is just a rumor but we all believe what we want to believe. One shot per hole … how many of us would still be standing at the end of a round?
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