Odds-n-Ends . Volume 13 | Issue 15

What’s a Mulligan?

(from Online Word of the Day, July 2013)

mulligan, n.2
[‘ An extra stroke allowed after a poor shot (esp. a tee-shot) in a friendly game, not counted on the score card.’]

Pronunciation: Brit. /ˈmʌlᵻɡ(ə)n/, U.S. /ˈmələɡ(ə)n/

Forms: also with capital initial.

Etymology:Probably < the name of David. B. Mulligan (1871–1954), Canadian-born hotelier and amateur golfer, who is said to have coined the term at the Winged Foot Golf Club, New York State, in the 1930s.

Golf colloq.
An extra stroke allowed after a poor shot (esp. a tee-shot) in a friendly game, not counted on the score card.
1936 Big Springs (Texas) Daily Herald 5 May 4/5 Another McIntyre-ism is the use of the ‘mulligan’—links-ology for a second shot employed after a previously dubbed shot.
1938 Coshocton (Ohio) Tribune 16 Apr. 6/5 A ‘mulligan’ is a golfing handicap which allows a golfer to re-play any one tee shot he chooses to.
1947 Washington Post 18 May (Sports section) 8/7 General Eisenhower got away from the first tee gracefully on his second shot, taking advantage of the rule of ‘Mulligans’, to smite one far down the middle after hooking his first shot into the trees.
1952 Golf Digest May 7 ‘It’s just a friendly match’, he said. ‘Wanna take a mulligan?’
1965 H. Graffis Esquire’s World of Golf xii. 174 Magnanimously, the hustler will allow his prey a Mulligan off the tee now and then.
1982 S. B. Flexner Listening to Amer. 269 Mulligan is a late 1920s term for a second drive from the first tee, which some friendly amateurs grant each other if a first drive is a bad shot, discounting that first one.
1990 Times 18 Jan. 43/7 There were smiles all round as someone offered Lyle ‘a mulligan’—another go.
2011 B. Mallon & R. Jerris Hist. Dict. Golf 197 Many club players will allow a player on the first tee to hit a second tee ball, choosing the better of the two shots, and this is termed a ‘mulligan’.