About Us

The Story Of Mulligans

Every golfer has taken a mulligan. Slice it into the forest and go hunting for your ball? Mulligan. Top it for a three foot drive? Mulligan. Blast a shot straight up into the ceiling of the golf simulator? Oh yeah… big mulligan.

On behalf of all aspiring golfers, thank you mulligan…thank you David Bernard Mulligan, Canadian hotel magnate, amateur golfer, and founding father of the beloved golfing do-over.

Born in Pembroke, Ontario in 1871, David was a brainy kid. He finished high school at 14, passed the bar at 17, then decided practicing law was boring compared to running hotels. Over time, he ran some of the biggest names in the business: the Windsor in Montreal, the Waldorf Astoria and Biltmore Hotel in New York City. By the 1940s, he was called the “Dean of North American Hotelmen”, which means if he ran your hotel, your towels were folded tighter than a six-inch tap-in for birdie.

On the golf course, though, his résumé wasn’t quite so polished.

In the 1920s, Mulligan played at the Country Club de Montreal in Saint-Lambert. He was the only one in his golfing foursome who owned a car. It was a 33-horsepower beast, so rattly, it left both passengers and driver shaken like martinis by the time they finally reached the golf course.

To reach the course, he had to wrestle his cranky vehicle across the Victoria Bridge, which wasn’t paved with asphalt at the time, but laid with wooden planks. As he approached the first tee, with rattled bones and jittery hands, his opening drives often flew with all the grace of a duck in a windstorm.

The result? His opening drives were seldom down the middle, most often veering off the tee far from the fairway. One day, exhausted from his travels and fed up with his opening drive, he simply dropped another ball, and swung again.

His buddies stopped, puzzled. “What’s that supposed to be?”

Mulligan, relaxed and unapologetic for his do-over, shrugged and said: “a correction shot.”

And just like that, golf’s most humbling gift was born. Out of mercy, or maybe because they needed a ride home, his friends let it slide. Soon, it became tradition…rightfully named, a “mulligan”.

From there, the habit spread faster than a three-putt on a windy day. Mulligan carried the practice to courses in the U.S., and golfers everywhere embraced it. Some say the term stuck because of the bridge ride, some say it was because he overslept and rushed to the tee, but the result is simple: David B. Mulligan gave us all permission to hit again, unapologetically.

If David B. Mulligan taught us anything, it’s this: golf may be a game of honour, but sometimes, honour deserves a mulligan too.

Today, a plaque near the first tee at the Country Club de Montreal honors him, and we at Mulligan’s Golf Experience keep the tradition alive as we all: Play. Relax. Repeat.