National Mulligan Day is observed annually on October 17.
In golf, a mulligan happens when a player gets a second chance to perform a certain move or action. This day was created as a day for giving yourself a second chance or, as some people call it, a “do-over.”
According to the United States Golf Association (USGA), there are three different stories explaining the origin of the term. The first derives from the name of a Canadian golfer, David Mulligan, a one-time manager of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City, who played golf in the 1920s. A different, later, etymology gives credit to John A. “Buddy” Mulligan, a locker room attendant at Essex Fells C.C., New Jersey in the 1930s. Another story, according to author Henry Beard, states that the term comes from Thomas Mulligan, a minor Anglo-Irish aristocrat and passionate golfer who was born in 1793.
According to the USGA, the term first achieved widespread use in the 1940s.
HOW TO OBSERVE
We can all think of something that at one point in time we have said,“I wish I could do that over.” To celebrate National Mulligan Day, take your “do-over”. Use #NationalMulliganDay to post on social media.
HISTORY [per Wikipedia]
There are many theories about the origin of the term. The United States Golf Association (USGA) cites three stories explaining that the term derived from the name of a Canadian golfer, David Mulligan, one time manager of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York City, who played at the Country Club of Montreal golf course, in Saint-Lambert near Montreal during the 1920s. One version has it that one day after hitting a poor tee shot, Mulligan re-teed and shot again. He called it a “correction shot,” but his friends thought it more fitting to name the practice after him. David Mulligan then brought the concept from Canada to the famous U.S. golf club Winged Foot.
A second version has the extra shot given to Mulligan due to his being jumpy and shaky after a difficult drive over the Victoria Bridge to the course. The final version of the David Mulligan story gives him an extra shot after having overslept, rushing to get ready to make the tee time.[1]
An alternative, later, etymology credits a different man named Mulligan – John A. “Buddy” Mulligan, a locker room attendant at Essex Fells Country Club in New Jersey.[2] In the 1930s, he would finish cleaning the locker room and, if no other members appeared, play a round with the assistant pro, Dave O’Connell, and a reporter and member, Des Sullivan, who was later golf editor for the Newark Evening News. One day his first shot was bad and he beseeched O’Connell and Sullivan to allow another shot since they “had been practicing all morning” and he had not. Once they agreed and the round finished, Mulligan proudly exclaimed to the members in his locker room for months how he had gotten an extra shot from the duo. The members loved it and soon began giving themselves “Mulligans” in his honor. Sullivan began using the term in his golf articles in the Newark Evening News. The Today Show TV program ran this story around 2005 and have it in their archives. Mulligan was located in the 1970s at the Lyons, New Jersey VA Hospital, helping with their golf facility. Des Sullivan, now semi-retired, wrote of this find in his July 22, 1970 column, in the Myrtle Beach Sun News.
