Stuart Graham, who grew up in Bristol and is the son of former Bristol mayor Jack Graham, has been researching the history of the “mulligan” — golf’s famous free do-over — whose invention is apparently credited to Graham’s ancestor.

Graham, who works as a financial advisor in the Ottawa-Gatineau area, learned about the family connection from a cousin, who told him they are related to the presumed inventor of the shot, David B. Mulligan, a sportsman and businessman born in Pembroke in 1869.

The discovery launched Graham into researching his family history with the goal of learning everything he could about the man who invented golf’s most famous do-over.

At first, he tried to turn the family connection into a beach apparel brand he had started, selling t-shirts with the name David B. Mulligan printed on the front.

Then, upon discovering that 2024 would be the 100th anniversary of the mulligan, he decided to write a short article about the topic so he could tell people about his research.

“That’s how this started,” Graham said. “I said, nobody’s going to know the story . . . I didn’t even know the story. And nobody’s going to know what the history was of this person and how it got started and everything like that, so maybe I should let them know.”

Since then, Graham has been consulting long-lost cousins, country clubs and golf historians alike to write a book, which he intends to release by the end of next year.

In it, he wants to unpack some of the theories about the origins of the shot, about which there is much speculation. There are several theories, but the prevailing story says that Mulligan first used it in 1924 at the Saint-Lambert Country Club just outside of Montreal.

The United States Golf Association has a page dedicated to the query, and it recounts the story as follows.

“One day, Mulligan hit a very long drive off the first tee, just not straight, and acting on impulse re-teed and hit again. His partners found it all amusing, and decided that the shot that Mulligan himself called a ‘correction shot’ deserved a better name, so they called it a ‘mulligan.’”

Graham said the golf historians he has consulted seem to agree with this moment as being the first recorded mulligan. But in his research, Graham deduced that Mulligan likely began using the stroke about a decade before, when he played at a golf club in Winnipeg.

“There’s no documentation [ . . . ] Unlike in Montreal, there’s nobody in the newspaper actually documenting an article,” he said.

“He was a busy hotel man. He didn’t just start this up in 1924 and say, ‘Hey, guess what, I’m going to do this.’ He was probably already doing it without a name beforehand — taking a second shot or muffing up his shot,” Graham said.

Mulligan said that the earliest written record he could find of the shot being used by another player was in 1931 at the Rambler Golf Club in Detroit, then the first Canadian written record occurred four years later in the Windsor Star.

But the mulligan’s watershed moment was at New York state’s Winged Foot Country Club in the early 1930s, a club where David B. Mulligan became a member alongside celebrity members such as Babe Ruth and Sammy Byrd, both then-members of the New York Yankees.

While Graham has not been able to find a connection between these members, he said it is likely they were influenced by Mulligan’s habit of taking an extra shot, through word of mouth around the club, and said Winged Foot. Really was the beginning of the shot’s popularity.

“All the big people that went to Winged Foot and played there . . . it might have just been a local phenomenon instead,” he said.

In his research Graham was also pleased to learn that Mulligan was a team builder for the Ottawa Senators — Graham’s favourite team — winning three Stanley Cups between 1909 and 1911.

He found it interesting that Mulligan was a hotelier because he himself earned a hotel management diploma. “It’s kind of a weird connection,” he said.

Graham said researching the book has allowed him to learn more about his family history and has introduced him to relatives in the United States that he wouldn’t otherwise have met.

He said at some point in the research process he would like to visit the Saint-Lambert Country Club and hit a shot off the first tee — but he won’t take a mulligan. Even after all the research on the topic, Graham said he can’t bring himself to take one.

“I don’t take mulligans myself. I have a really hard time taking them. It’s not that I’m a golf purist, but I have a hard time counting my score if I hit a bad shot.”

He said the most ironic thing of all is that of all people, David B. Mulligan did not need a mulligan in life.

“The oddest thing about the whole thing is the one person that probably didn’t need a mulligan in life was him,” Graham said. “He was a very successful businessman.”

Graham was hoping to release the book this year for the 100th anniversary of the mulligan, but is now aiming for sometime next year.

Stuart Graham (right), stands with his wife Tracey Lynn Graham (middle) and his cousin Leighton H. Coleman III during a trip he took this summer. Coleman III’s mother Suzy was the youngest daughter of David B. Mulligan, the presumed inventor of the famous golf shot. Photo: submitted by Stuart Graham

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