Mulligans Golf Game: Take the Do Over, Not the Stroke

By the Big Fairways team · Updated 3 September 2026 · We build the scorecard app that keeps score for this game.

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Mulligans is the simplest format in golf. Wherever your handicap gives you a stroke on a hole, you do not get a net score. You get a mulligan on that hole instead, a do over on any shot you like. Two strokes on the hole means two do overs.

Nothing carries. What you do not use on a hole is gone the moment you walk off it. Your gross score is your score, and every game the group has running that day is scored off gross, so the same stroke is never spent twice.

The holes where you get one are the dot holes, the ones already marked on your card. Big Fairways knows which ones are yours before you get there, so it can tell you on the tee: this one is yours, and here is how many you have.

Play a demo round

Saturday morning · four players · gross scores

This is a simulation, not a live round. Tap the green Start Simulation button to learn the game and watch this made up match unfold one hole at a time. The badge in the corner of a box is a do over on that hole, two badges means two, and a badge goes bright the moment it gets spent. Watch the Do overs column: nobody spends every one he is given, and one or two of them get thrown away.

First tee

Start Simulation

Live leaderboard, gross points

Through 0 holes Reset

What is the Mulligans golf game?

Mulligans is a way of taking your handicap. Instead of knocking a shot off your score on the holes where you get one, you spend that stroke on the hole itself, as a do over on any shot you want to hit again. Everything else about the round stays where it was.

It is not a side game with its own points. It is a switch you put on the whole round, which is why it sits so well on top of something else. Run Train, TILT, Banker or Vegas underneath it and every one of those goes gross while Mulligans is on.

The appeal is that a stroke you can see is worth more than a stroke on paper. A shot taken off your score at the end of a hole feels like arithmetic. A shot you get to hit again while you are standing there feels like golf.

Where the name comes from

There are two stories about the first Mulligan and nobody has ever settled it. One credits a Canadian named David Mulligan, who played in Montreal in the twenties, drove the group to the course over a rough bridge, and was given a second swing off the first tee. The other credits John Mulligan, a locker room attendant at a club in New Jersey, who talked the members into letting him replay his opening shot because he never got the chance to warm up. Both are told as fact by people who were not there.

What is not in dispute is that the mulligan has never been in the Rules of Golf and never will be. It is a friendly game thing. This format just gives it a shape, so that instead of everybody arguing about who gets one, the card decides.

How to play Mulligans

1. Set your handicaps the way you always do, and let the card allocate the strokes. That allocation does not change.
2. Turn Mulligans on before the first tee. It runs for the whole round and applies to everybody.
3. On a hole where you get a stroke, you get a do over. Two strokes on that hole is two do overs.
4. Take it on any shot you like. A drive, an approach, a chip, a putt. Play the second ball and forget the first one.
5. Anything you do not use dies when the hole is over. It never goes with you to the next tee.
6. Write your gross score. There is no net score on this game, because the stroke has already been spent.
7. Score whatever games you are playing off gross, and settle up at the end.

Scoring, with a worked example

The demo above scores gross modified Stableford, which is a clean way to see the format work: a bogey pays 1, a par pays 2, a birdie pays 3, an eagle pays 5, an albatross pays 10, and a double bogey or worse pays nothing. You can run Mulligans over any format you like. The points here are only there so the leaderboard has something to move.

Take the eighth in the demo round, the third hardest hole on the card. Dan plays off a handicap that gives him two strokes there, so he has two do overs on the one hole and two badges in the box. He slices his drive at the trees and spends the first one to get back in the fairway. He spends the second on the approach and it finishes about where the first one did. He walks off with a par, worth 2, on a hole he would normally be looking at a bogey or worse. That is the whole idea.

Allen has one there, because his handicap only reaches the hardest few. His birdie putt catches the lip and spins out. He rakes it back, holes the do over, and takes 3. One stroke, spent on a putt, and it paid better than any drive would have.

The tenth shows the other side of it. Alex has a straightforward chip from the front edge, decides to use his do over to try to hole it, and the second one catches the collar and runs across the green. He makes a double bogey for nothing. His first ball was fine. He spent a good stroke on a shot that did not need it, and there was nothing to carry to the next hole to make up for it.

And on the third, Dan gets one on the short par 3 and never reaches for it. He hits the green, two putts, and walks off. The do over is gone. That is not a mistake, it is just how the game works.

Rules to agree before you play

• Take it on the spot. A do over replaces the shot you just hit, from where you hit it. You cannot walk to the green, see the trouble and go back and ask for it.
• One ball counts. Once you play the second one, the first one is dead. You do not get to look at both and pick.
• Say it out loud. Tell the group before you hit that you are taking one, so nobody is guessing later.
• Nothing carries. Agree this before you start, because somebody always tries. What you do not use on the hole is gone.
• Everything goes gross. While Mulligans is on, no game running that day uses net scores. That is the trade.
• Pace of play. On a busy Saturday, agree that a do over on a putt happens straight away rather than after the group has walked off.

The beginner version

If it is your first time, play it exactly as written and do not add anything. The whole point is that there is nothing to remember. Look at your card, find the holes with a dot beside your name, and know that on those holes you get one swing back.

The one habit worth building early is holding on to it. Most people spend theirs off the tee, because a bad drive is the loudest mistake. Watch what happens if you carry it to the green instead. A do over on a six footer is often the most valuable shot on the hole.

Why it works in a mixed group

A handicap is supposed to make a group even, but net scoring does it quietly, in the background, after the fact. Mulligans does the same job out loud. The higher handicap gets more do overs, on the harder holes, and everybody can see him using them.

It also gives a beginner something to hold. Nobody enjoys being told they shot ninety five but their net was seventy nine. Everybody enjoys being told they can hit that one again.

Play Mulligans Now! Set up your round, turn Mulligans on, and the app marks your dot holes.

Mulligans golf game FAQs

How does the Mulligans golf game work?

Your handicap strokes become do overs instead of net scores. On a hole where the card gives you a stroke, you get to replay any one shot on that hole. Two strokes on the hole means two replays. Unused ones do not carry to the next hole. You write your gross score, and every game the group is running is scored off gross.

What happens if I get two strokes on a hole?

You get two do overs on that hole, and you can spend them on any two shots you like, including two in a row on the same shot if the first replay is worse than what you had. Big Fairways puts two badges on that hole so you can see it coming before you tee off.

Do unused mulligans carry over to the next hole?

No. This is the rule people try to bend and it is the one worth holding. Anything left when the hole is finished is gone. If they carried, a high handicap would arrive at the last few holes with a pocketful of them and the round would stop being golf.

Is Mulligans played gross or net?

Gross, always. That is the trade you make. The stroke has already been spent on the do over, so taking it off the score as well would be spending it twice. Every other game running that day goes gross with it.

Can you play Mulligans with another game at the same time?

Yes, and that is how it is meant to be used. It is a switch on the round rather than a game of its own, so it sits underneath Train, TILT, Banker, Vegas or anything else the group has going. Those games keep their own scoring, they just read gross scores while Mulligans is on.

Where do you take the mulligan?

Any shot on that hole. Off the tee, from the fairway, from the sand, or on the green. Most people use it off the tee out of habit. The ones who save it for a putt tend to get more out of it.