Do It Over

This Irish variety pack contains two white balls with shamrocks and one green ball labeled "Official Mulligan Golf Ball." One of the white balls says "IRISH to a Tee" and the other says "Irish love the greens."

The design is printed on high quality, two-piece construction golf balls developed for consistent control, distance, and durability. These balls are meant to be used. The designs are printed in high-gloss inks that won't chip or fade. They come in clear gift packaging with the design facing forward.

If you've ever had trouble remembering which ball on the green is yours, this is the solution for you.

Do you need a quantity of one particular design? Click the Related Products tab above to see information about ordering loose golf balls. Minimum quantity for loose balls is 72.

Are you curious...?

There's no such thing as a Mulligan (or free do-over) in professional golf, of course, but allowing a free do-over is common in more social games, and charity tournaments sometimes sell mulligans to raise money. Unofficially, mulligans are only allowed on the first tee shot. When the second shot is worse than the first, it's called a Finnegan, and if the third shot is even worse, the player can claim a Branagan to claim one more try. The last do-over is called a Flanergan.

But who was Mulligan? That depends on whom you ask. The US Golf Association credits a Canadian named David Mulligan who called his 1920s do-overs a "correction shot." His friends thought it would be funny to name the practice after him. Another story points to a locker room attendant named John "Buddy" Mulligan from New Jersey. After he finished cleaning up one day in the 1930s, he played a round of golf with the assistant pro and a club member who happened to be a reporter. When his first shot went awry, he complained that his companions had been practicing all day and he had not, so he begged a do-over. They consented, and Mulligan told other members that the elite duo had given him an extra shot. Club members liked the story, and the mulligan was born. Yet another story points to an Anglo-Irish aristocrat named Thomas Mulligan who, in the early 1800s, made up a rule that a player's first stroke for a game is the first playable drive, and any prior shots don't count. Finally, a "mull" was a small hill of grass used to tee up the ball before tees were invented. When a player bungled a shot, he'd say "I'll have to mull again."

Wherever the term really came from, it was in common use by the 1940s.