A mulligan, in a game, happens when a player gets a second chance to perform a certain move or action. The practice is also sometimes referred to as a "do-over."[1]
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In golf, a mulligan is a retaken shot on the first tee box, usually due to a previously errant one. Traditionally, mulligans are allowed only on the first tee shot (one per round) and are not just taken at any time of the golfer's choosing. It is sometimes called a "Finnegan" when the second shot is worse than the first. Golf tournaments held for charity may even sell mulligans to collect more money for the charity.[2]
Some social golf games also allow one mulligan per nine holes (thus two for a round of 18).[3]
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.[4]
An alternate, later etymology credits a different man named Mulligan — John A. "Buddy" Mulligan, a locker room attendant at Essex Fells C.C., New Jersey.[5] In the 1930s, he would finish cleaning the locker room and, if no other members appeared, play a round with the asst. pro, Dave O'Connell and a club reporter/member, Des Sullivan (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 the "OK" had been given 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 honor of John "Buddy" Mulligan. Shortly, Des Sullivan began using the term in his golf articles in The Newark Evening News. The TV "Today Show" ran this story about 2005 and has it in their archives. Mulligan was located in the '70s at a VA Hospital on Long Island.
According to the author Henry Beard, the term comes from Thomas Mulligan, a minor Anglo-Irish aristocrat and passionate golfer who was born on May 1, 1793 and lived near Lough Sclaff, on the Shannon estuary, in a modest manor house called Duffnaught Hall, which was totally destroyed in a mysterious fire one week after his death on April 1, 1879. Mulligan is said to have written, "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.
Yet another anecdote goes back to old terminology referring to a "mull," a small hill of grass or dirt used to tee the golf ball for easier striking prior to modern tees. When a bad shot was played, the player told his caddy "I'll have a mull-again" to play another shot.
According to the USGA, the term first achieved widespread use in the 1940s.
The term has found a broader acceptance in both general speech and other games, meaning any minor blunder which is allowed to pass unnoticed or without consequence. In both senses, it is implied that a mulligan is forgiven because it was either made by a rank beginner, or it is unusual and not indicative of the level of play or conduct expected of the person who made the mulligan.
Although certain players may wish to bank their shots, this is deemed un-sportsman like and is generally frowned upon, with the exception of ladies golf.
Often though in the realm of a fantasy sport, especially baseball, certain team owners who drop a player only to regret it several hours later, call on their respective commissioners to undo or grant a mulligan in order to reverse the transaction, even though the player is in the waiver pool. While mulligans are typically reserved to the sound discretion of the league commissioner, they should be used extremely sparingly and only in such instances of legitimate human error, rather than in cases of mistake resulting from carelessness, laziness, or inexcusable neglect.
The word can also be used in instances outside of sports, in real-life situations. For example, it has been used commonly in relationships to describe a situation where one partner, having damaged the relationship through some foolish action, then regrets his or her mistake and wishes for a mulligan having realized how ridiculous the initial action was. Much like the pressure of the first tee shot in front of strangers to start a round of golf, the first stab at a serious relationship is similarly pressure-packed; however, as with a golfing mulligan, a relationship mulligan allows the person to be much more relaxed and focused on the second attempt, having understood what went wrong on the first attempt.
Another example is in politics, where the losing candidate in a party primary may be able to run again in the general election on another ballot line. In the 2006 Connecticut US Senate race, many Ned Lamont supporters accused Senator Joseph Lieberman of running a mulligan race as an independent, since he had lost the Democratic Party primary. In the 2008 American Democratic primary elections, the term mulligan has been used to describe the possible redo elections in Michigan and Florida, after their results were declared invalid due to the early scheduling of the contests, against Democratic party rules.[6]
In certain circles, especially among binge drinkers, individuals have been known to "take a mulligan" in regards to their actions while drinking. The term has also been used to refer to "deemed cure" clauses in loan facility documentation, popular with sponsors at the height of the credit boom in 2006/07, which effectively allowed sponsors to "cure" covenant breaches after the event by adding equity.
In Magic: The Gathering, a player may declare a mulligan after drawing his initial hand at the beginning of each game. If such a declaration is made, the player puts his cards back into his deck, shuffles, and draws a new hand with one fewer card. A common reason for declaring a mulligan would be getting a hand with no mana sources, that is, a hand that has no playable cards. The player may repeat this until he is satisfied, or the number of cards in his hand reaches zero.
This mulligan style is known as the Paris mulligan, although it was first used in 1997 at the L.A. Pro Tour tournament as a test for the new system. It was mistakenly left in the Paris Pro Tour player's packet and this is where it finally got its name. Before that, the mulligan functioned differently. If a player had either 0 or 7 lands in his starting hand, that player could show his or her hand to the opponent, shuffle, and draw a new hand of seven cards. This was only allowed once. The new rule removed the requirement of revealing the hand to the opponent and made the mulligan a much more strategic part of the game, creating trade-off and risk where before there was none.
Unlike golf, mulligans in Magic are legal under game and tournament rules, and are more frequently associated with poor luck than lack of skill.
Upper Deck Entertainment's VS System employs a mulligan rule similar to the rule in Magic: The Gathering and also in "Myths and Legends".
In the Pokémon TCG, a player must declare a mulligan when during their draw they have no Basic Pokémon in their hand (as one of the victory conditions is to reduce one player's stock of pokemon to zero). At this point they must show the hand to their opponent, shuffle the cards back in to the deck and draw seven new cards. Their opponent then has the option to draw one extra card per mulligan. There is no limit to the number of mulligans that can be declared. The card draw part of the rule is not applied in the Game Boy version of the game.
In UFS the rules are a bit different. "After drawing their hands players may decide to take what is called a mulligan. The player who will be taking the first turn has the opportunity to take a mulligan first. Then the player who will take the second turn has the opportunity to mulligan. Players may only take one mulligan at the beginning of the game. If a player decides to mulligan all the cards currently in their hand are removed from the game and they draw a number of cards equal to their character’s printed hand size."[7]
In Titan because the first movement die roll is so crucial, and because certain numbers are perceived as much worse than others, a player is given one chance to re-roll the movement die if unsatisfied with the result.
A number of card-driven wargames include a Magic-style mulligan where a poor hand can be discarded to draw a new hand with one less card.