Golf is way too hard. And I think I have the answer! So... Listen up…
If you are not a golfer, do not ‘listen up’ because this is simply an ‘opinion piece’ for golfers only, trying to bring some sanity into the world of golf- a game that no human has ever conquered.
This was proven again over the weekend as I listened to the greatest golfer of all-time, Jack Nicklaus, say on the PGA broadcast that his lowest tournament score ever was 62. He never broke 60. He never came close to making birdie on every hole. In the battle between golf and humans, golf has always been the winner, and it isn’t even close.
But………………. what if the sacred rules of golf are all wrong?
Just asking that question may be links heresy. It feels as wrong as whispering in Sunday School that the Ten Commandments need improvement.
But please- listen for a moment.
Royal Aberdeen with friends and a good caddie
Golf was invented by the Scots or the Vikings or the Dutch sometime too long ago to remember. It was invented by men who could not break 120 on their best day, men who were so bored that they decided to tromp around in the long grasses and weeds near the sea with their dogs looking for rabbit holes, then knocking beach pebbles into those holes with their walking sticks. These same unhappy men then decided to make ‘rules’. And keep score. The rest is history.
But what if golf’s inventors got it all wrong? What if the rules of golf, which we consider sacred, are fundamentally flawed?
Consider some facts. Virtually all golfers are terrible. Golf is too hard. This is a scientific statement, confirmed by the National Golf Foundation, which states that under 5% of golfers break 80, only 26% break 90, only 55% break 100, and the other 45% cannot break 100. Indeed, 11% of all golfers cannot break 120. Almost no one breaks ‘par’- a term loosely and wrongly used to describe what a golfer should actually do.
Indeed, those who break par (known as ‘plus handicaps’) are so rare most people have never even met one. PGA Tour guys are rarer still. Only about 400 people on the planet are good enough to make a living playing golf. No wonder people like me went to law school. Imagine a world where only 400 lawyers could make a living, heaven maybe? Neither Tiger Woods nor Jack Nicklaus, the two greatest of all time, ever broke 60. That means birdies are rare. Pars are rare for most people. Bogies are solid golf. Double bogies are normal.
Thus – let me state the obvious, under the current rules, golf is way too hard.
I mean, what if you had to play your foul balls in baseball? What if the goalposts were half as big in football? What if the baskets were two inches smaller in basketball?
Golf is sadly full of angst-fear-terror at times- perfectionism is prevalent. Golf is a game with a very small hole and no second chances in an almost impossible athletic move.
The sweet spot on a club is the size of Tom Thumb’s fingernail, and that sweet spot is at the end of a very long club, almost four feet long for drivers, that must travel on a long journey, starting with the golfer staring at a little white ball while wearing a coat and tie (back in the day), or other regular clothing with spiked shoes, wrapping the long club around your head to grab enough power to return the club on that journey back to the white sphere, hoping to hit it the back of that ball, if it can be found-in other words-‘perfect’. Only those who have spent their entire life mastering this skill can do it well, and in a sad paradox, those expert golfers are the most miserable of all. Eventually, almost all expert golfers hate the game. It is just too hard to repeat. Once you have felt the sweetness of your hands on a ‘perfect’ shot, you want it again, but it has always flown away to the clouds, gone forever. The search for that feeling can last decades.
Thus, golf itself needs a ‘mulligan’.
The term is a familiar concept. It is also illegal. People like Bill Clinton and Donald Trump get away with it because they run the world itself. In golf, it is sadly only for weak players with no true appreciation for the sanctity of the game. In essence, it is seen as cheating. But…listen.
Mulligans are common in other sports.
In baseball, you get three strikes before failure. Swing and miss twice. Not a problem. You can hit foul balls for eternity if you like.
In football, you get four tries to make a ‘first down’. In fact, the first down is often just a setup for the real play. Quarterbacks can throw it out of bounds and be called smart for doing so.
In tennis, you get two serves. You are almost encouraged to miss the first one. You can ‘lay-up’ with the second one if the bomb doesn’t work.
In bowling, you get a second chance called a spare. All spares and you’re considered a superstar, the equivalent of a two handicap in golf.
In track and field events, javelin and discus throwers get six (6) attempts. High jumpers and pole vaulters get three (3) tries over the bar at every height. Failure is expected if you wish to be great.
You get the point. So why not golf?? Why not mulligans? Real ones. Legal ones. Even tournament golf.
Typical ‘scrambles’, played only in the United States as far as I can tell, are a version of Mulligan golf. And they are popular because bad golfers can enjoy the game. It is perfectly legal to forget the myriad of bad shots that take place constantly, and only play the best shot.
Even the current handicap system is seriously flawed. It is certainly functional, but also leaves no incentive for getting better. Mediocre players are rewarded for being mediocre. The current system just ‘gives’ a bad player a free stroke (or two). He does need to earn it. It is a gift.
Ol’ Joe with his 16 handicap is gifted 12 strokes over Po’ Bob with his 4 handicap. Bob has worked his whole life to play good golf, resulting in a legitimate 4 handicap. And his reward? Losing every day to his buddy Joe, who can’t putt or chip and hits it 205 on a good day, who has not had a lesson ever, and has no intention to get better. He loves being a 16. And he loves spending Bob’s money.
Jesus might even ask Joe, as he did the man at the pool of Bethesda, “Do you want to get well?”, and Joe would look up and say, “No, thanks, I am a happy 16!”
Thus, a new and improved game. What if Joe got no free gift strokes? Instead of free strokes, what if Joe got mulligans instead, a second chance. A golfer’s spare. A golfer’s 2nd and 3rd strike or down. A golfer’s 2nd serve. What if Joe got 16 mulligans and Bob got 4 mulligans?
Before you sneer or laugh, remember- the Rules of golf were not handed down from Mt. Sinai. They did not come from Moses and the hand of God. They came from losers wandering around in the gorse bushes of Scotland, not the burning bush of Moses. They did not come on stones from Mt Sinai. They came from tired old men who could not play a lick, but were trying to figure out how to win, even though their ‘spoon’ went 125 max.
And don’t forget- almost no one plays by the rules anyway.
Gimmes are common. First tee mulligans are routine. Winter rules are played in July. Lift, clean, and place is even played by professionals. Improve your lie in the ‘fairway only’ is every day stuff. Even ‘lay one down- we know it’s here somewhere’ happens too often among friends.
Truthfully, ‘real golf’ is only golf played with a pencil in hand, attested by a competent scorekeeper, and entered into the system as a real round of golf. All putts are holed. All rules, no matter how archaic, are followed. A record is kept. That is real golf and truthfully, most people hate it.
It is time to change.
But first-
What is the current “State of the Mulligan”? What is it now?
1- FIRST TEE MULLIGAN- This is the American norm. It presumes no time to warm up. It is further based on a presumption that the golfer will have ‘first tee jitters’, played out in front of a small group of spectators near the tee box. The basic seriousness of the game is still intact. The first tee is a gracious act of grace bestowed on undeserving hackers. Once the players vacate the 1st tee, it becomes serious business. Every putt is holed. Every shot counts. No mercy. No grace. Just golf, except for the occasional, ‘pick it up’ on the green.
2- ONE-TIME ANYWHERE MULLIGAN- This is simply a friendlier version of the same idea. If the player decides that his drive is okay on the 1st tee, he can use a mulligan, off the tee only, at any time later in the round. The mulligan stays in your back pocket until really needed. When the player hits it OB on the 8th hole, ‘well, good thing I didn’t use my mulligan on the 1st tee’, and everyone nods agreement and lets Ol’ Harry tee it up again.
3- ONE MULLIGAN PER NINE- Friendlier still is the seemingly graceful version where each player gets one Mulligan per Nine. Typically, this is still only off the tee on a par 5 or par 4. It doesn’t feel right to let someone use it on a Par 3, or a second shot, and for sure not on a three (3) foot putt. The thinking goes that mulligans must be limited, sort of like doughnuts. Too many mulligans will make you fat. One doughnut is okay but not two, and certainly not three. After all, we are serious golfers.
4- ONE MULLIGAN PER HANDICAP HOLE- But what if……….? Moving along the Darwinian evolution of Mulligan’s, we now come to a revolutionary idea. What if the player got one mulligan on every hole where he has a shot on the scorecard, and not just on the tee shot but on any shot? Back to Ol’ Joe with his 16 handicap. Joe would get a mulligan on 16 holes. He would get sixteen 2nd chances, not an automatic gift stroke on the scorecard. Bad drives would allow a mulligan drive, although if used on the drive, the pressure is now on to play the rest of the hole with no mulligan in the back pocket. Don’t like your second shot into the bunker? Just drop a ball and hit the 2nd one on the green. Or happy enough with the drive and the approach to the green? Now the player gets two putts, even getting a read on the second putt when the first putt is mis-read. The stroke must be earned, not given on the scorecard. The 6/net 5 is no more. Only a real score, aided by a mulligan.
5- ONE PER HOLE MULLIGAN- Even better, forget the handicaps. Why not one mulligan on every hole for every player? All players immediately get better. Limiting the mulligan to the drive only on the first tee, or once a round, or once per nine is, undoubtedly, just whetting an appetite that can only be satisfied with the full blown one mulligan per hole on any shot you choose. Golf becomes fun. The bad shots can truly be forgotten, like our sins in God’s wastebasket.
I have tested this game against Division One college players at the University of Kentucky. These kids are state champions and generally play to about a +3 or +4. I am a 6 handicap. Give me a mulligan on every hole, and I can generally (not always) beat the kid. Give me a mulligan on the appropriate stroke holes, and it will come out virtually even every time. My normal 78 becomes a 69 or so, which keeps me competitive with the kids. And best of all- shooting 69 with the Mulligans (considered cheating by sticklers) feels a lot better than shooting 78 with all the rules of golf. “Nice birdie” is a nice sound when walking off the green- even if it was done with a mulligan putt. Even better actually.
6- EVERY SHOT MULLIGAN- But none of this compares with the sheer joy of the Ultimate Mulligan. One mulligan for every shot! Why not? Hit two shots every time, unless you are satisfied completely with the first. That satisfaction only happens on tee balls, since a long drive down the middle of the fairway will always suffice, or holed shots. No mulligan is needed for putts or chips that find the hole. The glory of this system is immeasurable! Golf becomes wonderful-glorious-sublime-just plain fun. Eight (8) handicaps routinely break par. 110 shooters break 90. Scratch golfers shoot tour quality numbers. 67-year-old men like me routinely shoot their age. The good man inside every golfer is released onto the golfing scene like a fragrant whiff of flowers in April in Augusta. Most people have no idea how good they can be. They have resigned themselves to being bad. They have a number in their head which has defined them for too long. Ask a typical golfer his handicap and you will hear, ‘I’m a 22’, said with embarrassment. Or ‘I am a bad 9’, meaning I can barely break 90 right now. Or a ‘I am a 2 that can’t beat anybody’, frustrated that he mostly shoots a lot of 80’s but shoots even par just often enough to keep his handicap low. Or even a ‘0’, which is disappointing when what you really had in mind was a career on the PGA tour. So in short, a mulligan on every shot changes all that negativity.
The proof is in the Scorecard - from Ojay, California
Testimonies abound: One of my disciples is Steve from southern California. He loves golf. Don’t ask me how, but he seemed perfectly happy with his 22 handicap when we met for golf recently. He is usually trying to break 100. His enemy is the century mark. He is an engineer who loves to keep score, to count every shot, to meticulously record every lousy stroke. His personality is not made for ‘mulligan golf’. So, when I suggested it to him on a recent vacation in Ojai, California, he didn’t seem too interested. He still believed it was cheating. It seemed right to his overly Christian conscience that a bad drive and a poor second, and a lousy chip and three putts should be a double bogey on the easy par 4 1st hole. But…he reluctantly agreed to try the Ultimate Mulligan. I had to remind him, time and again, on the first few holes, ‘Don’t forget. You get another shot. So, another ball was thrown down and sure enough, the second shot was almost always better. And sure enough, when he birdied the second hole, he began to believe. After a while, even the first shot improved, knowing that there was no pressure on the first shot with a ball in the back pocket. And when I showed him the 39 on his front nine score card, he saw that, indeed, there was a good man living inside him. It had just never been publicly acknowledged or encouraged. As we concluded the 18 holes, we added up the scores over a drink. Philpot, with his 6 handicap, hit almost every green and shot 63, eight under par. Garrison, with his 22 handicap, shot 80, just nine over par. He hadn’t broken 90 in decades. We played in under four hours. We held up no one. We wasted no time hitting from bunkers or chipping out from the woods. We were often putting for birdies instead of chipping for pars. My 63 was better than his 80, which feels way better than my 80 being better than his 96.
Objections abound, I understand. But none of the objections really work.
a. Slow play: The naysayers say this would slow play. Never true- the time it takes to hit the second mulligan shot is minimal compared to the time going into the bunkers and woods to find balls, chip out, rake bunkers, and make double bogies. Think it through, it takes a lot less time to shoot 80 than 96- even if you hit some extra shots to get there. And it is even better if the high handicap ‘Bogey Man’ only plays with old balls that he can afford to lose. Way too much time is spent looking for Pinnacles. I currently have 500 balls in my garage looking for a home in the woods or bottom of a pond. They’d be much happier there than in my garage.
b. Competition: Serious players and gamblers also may object that this game takes away the edge. Not really, if anything, it ups the ante because now good shots win holes and money, instead of bad shots losing cash and bets. The choked three-footer on 18 is rare. The great second shot to birdie the last hole is common. The competition does not change- just the scores, which are universally better. Way better. This new system of mulligans matching the handicap works well in match play for sure, but also works in medal events as well. A full medal tournament could be played with the Net score being eliminated. There would be no guarantee that your ‘strokes’ (mulligans) would actually help your score. The net score would have to be earned.
The Future- Does it feel like cheating? Not that day. Not any day really. Why should it? We don’t play by the Royal and Ancient Rules anyway. The typical group at my club says- ‘pick it up’- ‘that’s good’- ‘tee it up today, boys. Really wet out there.’- ‘The woods are a lateral hazard, even though not marked’- So, why should a mulligan be cheating? Especially if EveryBody did it!!! Does Tom Brady feel like a failure for throwing an incompletion? Does Federer feel like he is cheating when he misses his first serve? Did Michael Jordan think he was cheating when he missed, got the rebound and dunked it? Or what about Joey Votto, who swings and misses twice, then hits a single up the middle? The 1st base coach pats him on the butt, the announcers proclaim what a ‘tough out’ he is- that he made the adjustments necessary, and the Reds pay him $18 million to hit lots of foul balls and singles.
Ultimate Mulligan golf is my future. At age 67, I shoot my age almost every day. It’s because the Best Me makes lots of pars and birdies, and bogeys are rare. For the first time in ages, I like myself again. The me who shoots 75 on a good day and 88 on a bad day is easy to hate. The me who shoots 63 on a good day is really easy to like. So, if you find yourself hating not only golf but yourself- if you have been thinking about putting your clubs in a yard sale- try the Ultimate Mulligan first.
There is a good man living inside you- now go find him.
PS: This was written in November 2018. Now at age 73, it is more true than ever! Mulligan golf is a surefire way for senior golfers to shoot your age. My brother-in-law, Tommy Lee, and I always play Mulligan golf. He probably would have quit golf without mulligans. It has saved him.
And to show how much fun it can be, I came to our final hole two years ago at Steelwood CC, having a really good Mulligan Day. I was eight under par with my six handicap. The 18th hole is a par five with water left, out of bounds and trees right. I was choking, which is my normal pattern when I am playing well. Finishing off a good round is one of my major flaws.
I sliced my drive into the right trees, lost forever. Oh boy. The mulligan saved me and got me into the fairway. I hooked my layup into the water left. I made the correction with my mulligan and found the fairway, now 110 yards from the pin. I yanked my pitching into the water left. Here we go, I thought to myself, ruining an almost perfect round. I dropped my mulligan ball, hit the wedge again, this time in the sweet spot. The ball tracked onto the green and into the hole for an eagle three! I turned a triple bogey eight finish into an eagle, and my all-time low round of 62.
There ya go. I rest my case.
PS. For those of you looking for a spiritual point to all this, see The Eternal Mulligan - Golf Lessons for the Front Nine of Life, published many years ago.