the mulligan
I work with a few Indians. These are not Indians as in the noble people who lived on this continent before us ugly Eurpoeans came and ruined the place. These are Indians as in, from India.
Being Indians, as in from India, they don't know a lot about American slang or customs when they first arrive, so many of the figures of speech we use have to be explained, and so do many other customs, like cheating. Our place of employment has a golf outing every Thursday night in the summer (when it stays light out late enough) after working hours. We start at 5:30 and play 9 holes. The place also sponsors a charity event benefitting the MS Society. This summer on various Thursday nights as a fund raiser, they have been selling mulligans at $5 a shot to add to the donations for the MS Society. So it came to pass (yes, I was getting to a point) that I had to explain mulligans to one of my Indian compatriots.
Mulligans, in short, are a do-over. If you take a shot and you don't like the results, you put another ball on the ground (or the tee, if you're at the tee box) and hit it, hoping that you'll like the result of that shot better. In regular golf (as in keeping your score for handicap), they are very illegal, but a lot of guys use them when they play with their buddies. I've seen them used on many occasions, but refuse them myself, because I really want to know how I do when I play. If you say you shot 95, and you counted all your strokes, you know you shot 95. If you took a mulligan, or two, or three, (or four....) and come out saying you shot 88, you don't really know anything. They are taken more by people who care what their score looks like in relation to the others they play with. I guess I'm not good enough to care and if I was, I wouldn't be needing the mulligan anyway. Then again, when I play golf, I judge how well I'm doing against my past performance, regardless of the scores of those in my group. If I was worried about what my score looks like with respect to others I play with, I would have quit long ago. Now, if mulligans are being sold for a good cause and it's part of the game and we're all buying, I'll take what I can get to help the cause and keep the playing field level. Believe it or not, it took a while to get the concept across. The poor guy found it hard to believe people would actually put another ball down and hit it like the first shot never happened, but we got there.
In the process, we came across an article on the web, about golf, politicians and cheating. A lot of the article was about politicians not reporting golf trips or outings that are paid for by lobbyists, but it got into mulligans and the political penchant for them. Apparently Mr. Clinton used them so often that many of his golf partners referred to them as 'Billigans' or simply 'Clintons'. Fourth-ranked NCAA golfer Bryce Molder told Maximum Golf magazine about a round with Bill Clinton at Chenal Country Club in Little Rock, Ark. ``Playing with the president was weird,'' he said. ``He shot a 90. At the end of the game, his scorecard said 84.'' (Molder shot 60, a career low for him.) Personally, I'd take the 90 and be happy.
For you equal time fanatics, I can include the Dan Quayle story, which involved allegations that he accepted a golf weekend from a lobbyist and found his room equipped with young ladies for hire, and allegedly never left to play. It was however debunked later in an investigation, yet the poor guy had to endure the sound bite the media captured from his wife that went something like, "I knew that was all a lie. Anyone who knows Dan knows he'd rather play golf than have sex any day." Ouch!
Being Indians, as in from India, they don't know a lot about American slang or customs when they first arrive, so many of the figures of speech we use have to be explained, and so do many other customs, like cheating. Our place of employment has a golf outing every Thursday night in the summer (when it stays light out late enough) after working hours. We start at 5:30 and play 9 holes. The place also sponsors a charity event benefitting the MS Society. This summer on various Thursday nights as a fund raiser, they have been selling mulligans at $5 a shot to add to the donations for the MS Society. So it came to pass (yes, I was getting to a point) that I had to explain mulligans to one of my Indian compatriots.
Mulligans, in short, are a do-over. If you take a shot and you don't like the results, you put another ball on the ground (or the tee, if you're at the tee box) and hit it, hoping that you'll like the result of that shot better. In regular golf (as in keeping your score for handicap), they are very illegal, but a lot of guys use them when they play with their buddies. I've seen them used on many occasions, but refuse them myself, because I really want to know how I do when I play. If you say you shot 95, and you counted all your strokes, you know you shot 95. If you took a mulligan, or two, or three, (or four....) and come out saying you shot 88, you don't really know anything. They are taken more by people who care what their score looks like in relation to the others they play with. I guess I'm not good enough to care and if I was, I wouldn't be needing the mulligan anyway. Then again, when I play golf, I judge how well I'm doing against my past performance, regardless of the scores of those in my group. If I was worried about what my score looks like with respect to others I play with, I would have quit long ago. Now, if mulligans are being sold for a good cause and it's part of the game and we're all buying, I'll take what I can get to help the cause and keep the playing field level. Believe it or not, it took a while to get the concept across. The poor guy found it hard to believe people would actually put another ball down and hit it like the first shot never happened, but we got there.
In the process, we came across an article on the web, about golf, politicians and cheating. A lot of the article was about politicians not reporting golf trips or outings that are paid for by lobbyists, but it got into mulligans and the political penchant for them. Apparently Mr. Clinton used them so often that many of his golf partners referred to them as 'Billigans' or simply 'Clintons'. Fourth-ranked NCAA golfer Bryce Molder told Maximum Golf magazine about a round with Bill Clinton at Chenal Country Club in Little Rock, Ark. ``Playing with the president was weird,'' he said. ``He shot a 90. At the end of the game, his scorecard said 84.'' (Molder shot 60, a career low for him.) Personally, I'd take the 90 and be happy.
For you equal time fanatics, I can include the Dan Quayle story, which involved allegations that he accepted a golf weekend from a lobbyist and found his room equipped with young ladies for hire, and allegedly never left to play. It was however debunked later in an investigation, yet the poor guy had to endure the sound bite the media captured from his wife that went something like, "I knew that was all a lie. Anyone who knows Dan knows he'd rather play golf than have sex any day." Ouch!
John put this out here at 3:58 PM
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