[Ads-l] mulligan (golf)--warning: speculative

[ADSGarson O'Toole]

Stephen Goranson wrote:
> (warning; speculative)
> Which golfer Mulligan (if any) putatively gave the name to take a mulligan, a re-do swing, is disputed.
> (First, never mind the old ballad Finnegan’s Wake, published in 1864.)
> An additional (post-Honeymooners) addressing the ball.
> Mull it over, again…

List members may find it helpful to know that Peter Reitan's article
about "mulligan" (a second shot without penalty in golf) is the most
recent and comprehensive analysis. Here is a link:

https://esnpc.blogspot.com/2017/05/hey-mulligan-man-second-shot-at-history.html

In 1930 "The Arizona Daily Star" published a sports column called
"MULLIGAN by Stew". Presumably this was a pun based on "mulligan
stew".

A reader sent in a note about golf containing the phrase "mull again".
Unfortunately, the context indicated that the phrase was part of a pun
based on the name of the sports column and on "mulligan stew".

Taking second shots was not mentioned although the writer described
rainy weather that may have justified relaxed rules.

Date: January 10, 1930
Newspaper: Arizona Daily Star
Newspaper Location: Tucson, Arizona
Article: MULLIGAN by Stew
Quote Page 8, Column 2
Database: Newspapers.com

[Begin excerpt]
A punster hands this in:
Dear Stew, Mull again over this:

It was not so long ago that the breezes over the city golf links were
balmy, and the club's following was gratifying; yet, it took a day
such as was Tuesday to show the true golfer.

It drizzled, it blew; the sun shone, and faintly too at times, to a
staunch dozen who hustled out across the golfing grounds in the cool
of the morning and the noontime dew.

When it was raining a dampened group sat cheerfully about the
proverbial log in the club house, and when the shower halted for a
space, the same group slipped out for a hole or two.

And so it was: two showers to a hole, or two holes to a shower . . .
[End excerpt]

Garson

------------------------------------------------------------
The American Dialect Society - http://www.americandialect.org