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Mulligans: Timeless essays from the archive of the best-selling author of The Masters, Hogan, and The Eternal Summer
Our title needs explaining.
Even non-golfers know the extralegal but nearly universally embraced grace note in our hard-edged, numerical game. We’re talking about the breakfast ball, the reload, the do-over: the Mulligan. Like second marriages, the second first shot of the day represents the triumph of optimism over experience, and that can be a good thing.
The mulligan got its moniker on a May day in Montreal in the mid-1920s. As the hero recalled in an interview in 1952, Mr. Mulligan’s mates gave him the stink-eye when he struck his inaugural tee shot, hated it, impulsively put down another ball, whacked again, and looked like he intended to forget that his first strike had ever happened. “The hell you doing, Dave?” they might have asked, but didn’t, this being Canada.
So, while we honor the one hundredth anniversary of the mulligan—the name, not the thing itself—Mulligans might not really be an apt title for this book, because, after all, the stories and excerpts herein are not my slices out-of-bounds, but rather a collection of drives swatted a pleasing distance on the proper vector.
Disinterring these stories put me in a peculiar, reflective mood, caught within the backward-looking mindset where regret resides. Unlike Ms. Edith Piaf, I regret beaucoup. For I rue the way I used to dress, and I cringe at college days' photos of the chia bloom sprouting out of my scalp. I should have been nicer to Tiger, more empathetic, and tried harder to comprehend the pressure this guy’s been under all his life. I’d love to have a second first conversation with Valerie Hogan, Ben’s wife, although being sweet as pie probably wouldn’t have helped my mission, which was for her to talk at some length about her life with the great man.
At various stages during his quest to become Ben Hogan, the agonies of falling short sometimes flared into view. He persevered in ways that made his epic struggles riveting for a writer—a set of themes that interested me more than polishing his (or anyone’s) trophy. Maybe this motif reflects my own tendency to brood, but it also sharpens my focus on what really matters. Even for the best practitioners, golf glory is as transient as a Fourth of July sparkler. Maybe the essence of golf is failure and how to handle it—and not the thrill of winning.
I’ve written twenty-odd books and hundreds of magazine articles. Choosing appropriate offerings from among these million-plus published words presented a dilemma. But my friend and business partner, John Strawn, observed that articles excerpted from books indicated enduring interest, so we include a couple of “FAR” from Golf Digest and “Back to the Mariposas,” which first ran in Sports Illustrated.
Early in my career, Desmond Muirhead told me something so wise that it rang in my head like a gong, reverberating as an Irrefutable Rule because I was already inclined toward it. “Golf has enough press agents,” the famous/infamous golf course architect told me. “Try telling the truth.”
The essays which follow, culled from nearly four decades worth of chasing down stories, illuminate the broader arc of my interests—how grit, folly, anger, humor, anguish and dismay, spiced occasionally with joy, boil in the emotional stew of a golfer’s life. At the end of each piece collected here, I will reflect on what writing them meant.
Even non-golfers know the extralegal but nearly universally embraced grace note in our hard-edged, numerical game. We’re talking about the breakfast ball, the reload, the do-over: the Mulligan. Like second marriages, the second first shot of the day represents the triumph of optimism over experience, and that can be a good thing.
The mulligan got its moniker on a May day in Montreal in the mid-1920s. As the hero recalled in an interview in 1952, Mr. Mulligan’s mates gave him the stink-eye when he struck his inaugural tee shot, hated it, impulsively put down another ball, whacked again, and looked like he intended to forget that his first strike had ever happened. “The hell you doing, Dave?” they might have asked, but didn’t, this being Canada.
So, while we honor the one hundredth anniversary of the mulligan—the name, not the thing itself—Mulligans might not really be an apt title for this book, because, after all, the stories and excerpts herein are not my slices out-of-bounds, but rather a collection of drives swatted a pleasing distance on the proper vector.
Disinterring these stories put me in a peculiar, reflective mood, caught within the backward-looking mindset where regret resides. Unlike Ms. Edith Piaf, I regret beaucoup. For I rue the way I used to dress, and I cringe at college days' photos of the chia bloom sprouting out of my scalp. I should have been nicer to Tiger, more empathetic, and tried harder to comprehend the pressure this guy’s been under all his life. I’d love to have a second first conversation with Valerie Hogan, Ben’s wife, although being sweet as pie probably wouldn’t have helped my mission, which was for her to talk at some length about her life with the great man.
At various stages during his quest to become Ben Hogan, the agonies of falling short sometimes flared into view. He persevered in ways that made his epic struggles riveting for a writer—a set of themes that interested me more than polishing his (or anyone’s) trophy. Maybe this motif reflects my own tendency to brood, but it also sharpens my focus on what really matters. Even for the best practitioners, golf glory is as transient as a Fourth of July sparkler. Maybe the essence of golf is failure and how to handle it—and not the thrill of winning.
I’ve written twenty-odd books and hundreds of magazine articles. Choosing appropriate offerings from among these million-plus published words presented a dilemma. But my friend and business partner, John Strawn, observed that articles excerpted from books indicated enduring interest, so we include a couple of “FAR” from Golf Digest and “Back to the Mariposas,” which first ran in Sports Illustrated.
Early in my career, Desmond Muirhead told me something so wise that it rang in my head like a gong, reverberating as an Irrefutable Rule because I was already inclined toward it. “Golf has enough press agents,” the famous/infamous golf course architect told me. “Try telling the truth.”
The essays which follow, culled from nearly four decades worth of chasing down stories, illuminate the broader arc of my interests—how grit, folly, anger, humor, anguish and dismay, spiced occasionally with joy, boil in the emotional stew of a golfer’s life. At the end of each piece collected here, I will reflect on what writing them meant.
138 pages, Kindle Edition
Published August 12, 2025
2 people are currently reading
About the author
Curt Sampson
30 books30 followersCurt Sampson, golf professional turned golf writer, came to golf the old-fashioned way—as a caddie. He looped for his father for a few years on summer Saturday’s, then turned pro, in a manner of speaking, at age 12, as one of the scores of disheveled boys and men in the caddie pen at Lake Forest Country Club in Hudson, Ohio. His golf game developed from sneaking on LFCC at twilight, an occasionally nerve-wracking exercise because the greens keeper intimated a readiness to call the cops on trespassers. Sampson—never caught—progressed as a player and as an employee, scoring a job as starter/cart maintenance boy at age 16 at Boston Hills CC, a public course, also in Hudson. His high water mark as a young golfer was a win in the Mid- American Junior in 1970. Sampson attended Kent State University on a golf scholarship and managed a municipal course for two years following graduation, worked a couple more as an assistant pro at clubs in South Carolina and Tennessee, then bummed around as a touring pro in Canada, New Zealand, and Florida.
In November 1988, Sampson began to write full-time, mostly about the game of his father, golf. Texas Golf Legends, his first book, was collaboration with Santa Fe-based artist Paul Milosevich. Researching TGL gained Sampson introductions with people he has written about many times since: Hogan, Nelson, Crenshaw, Trevino, and a few dozen others. His next book–The Eternal Summer, a recreation of golf’s summer of 1960, when Hogan, Palmer, and Nicklaus battled–is still selling 15 years after its debut, a rarity in the publishing world. Sampson’s biography of the enigmatic William Ben Hogan struck a chord. Both Hogan and his next book, The Masters, appeared on the New York Times bestseller lists. Subsequent books and scores of magazine articles cemented Sampson’s reputation as readable and sometimes controversial writer with an eye for humor and the telling detail.
In November 1988, Sampson began to write full-time, mostly about the game of his father, golf. Texas Golf Legends, his first book, was collaboration with Santa Fe-based artist Paul Milosevich. Researching TGL gained Sampson introductions with people he has written about many times since: Hogan, Nelson, Crenshaw, Trevino, and a few dozen others. His next book–The Eternal Summer, a recreation of golf’s summer of 1960, when Hogan, Palmer, and Nicklaus battled–is still selling 15 years after its debut, a rarity in the publishing world. Sampson’s biography of the enigmatic William Ben Hogan struck a chord. Both Hogan and his next book, The Masters, appeared on the New York Times bestseller lists. Subsequent books and scores of magazine articles cemented Sampson’s reputation as readable and sometimes controversial writer with an eye for humor and the telling detail.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
October 29, 2025
While every sport has excellent stories about accomplishments by participants, not every sport can have great individual stories that tie so well to the play on the field. Golf is one of those sports that can, and this collection of essays by noted golf writer Curt Sampson does just that - gives the sport some great personal stories.
Like any other collection of literary items, be they novels, short stories or poems, some will be great, some not so great and some in the middle. I found most of these stories to be quite good. One interesting note about then is that if the story is about a golfer who had a famous moment or tourney and Sampson writes about it, he describes the golfer’s mind and actions just before the famous moment. Two examples are my two favorite stories in the book.
One is on Tiger Woods in his historic victory at the 2019 Masters. The story ends when he’s about to start his Sunday round, which just added to the wonder of how he was able to accomplish that win. The other story that follows this script is on Jan van de Velde’s famous 1999 finish at the Open. Many know about his famous meltdown on the 72nd hole, but Sampson writes a great essay on va de Velde’s first 17 holes on that Sunday, ending it when he’s about tees up on 18.
This is a quick, entertaining and informative read about a variety ofvgolfers across many years. Recommended for any level of golf fan.
Like any other collection of literary items, be they novels, short stories or poems, some will be great, some not so great and some in the middle. I found most of these stories to be quite good. One interesting note about then is that if the story is about a golfer who had a famous moment or tourney and Sampson writes about it, he describes the golfer’s mind and actions just before the famous moment. Two examples are my two favorite stories in the book.
One is on Tiger Woods in his historic victory at the 2019 Masters. The story ends when he’s about to start his Sunday round, which just added to the wonder of how he was able to accomplish that win. The other story that follows this script is on Jan van de Velde’s famous 1999 finish at the Open. Many know about his famous meltdown on the 72nd hole, but Sampson writes a great essay on va de Velde’s first 17 holes on that Sunday, ending it when he’s about tees up on 18.
This is a quick, entertaining and informative read about a variety ofvgolfers across many years. Recommended for any level of golf fan.
Displaying 1 of 1 review