The headline of the Opinion piece (Of Mulligans and McIlroy’s Miracle: Politics is the mulligan that put us $14.3 trillion in debt.) in the Wall Street Journal on Thursday caught my eye. Eagerly I read looking for the mulligan connection. Alas, towards the end, this paragraph appeared:
“Perhaps this is why politicians play so much golf. It can be a kind of retreat to simple honesty—unlike the political life, which might be called one long mulligan. In golf, a mulligan is when a ball doesn’t go in the hole, but it’s close, so you say that’s good enough, it’s in. Maybe years of legislative mulligans is how we ended up $14 trillion in debt.”
He had described a “gimme.” Golfers know a mulligan is a “do over.” Needless to say, readers online jumped on this point in the Comments section.
That Daniel Henninger attempted to draw from a golf analogy to discuss what’s going on in Washington with the budget talks is admirable. This reader will grant Mr. Henninger a mulligan. I’m sure if given a chance, his second shot at expressing his opinion would use the correct golf terminology and maybe, he will have a second set of eyes (preferably a golfer), review it before publication.
Mr. Henninger made some pretty good points (see in the video here) comparing McIlroy’s public performance as a private citizen versus President Obama and Mr. Boehmer’s performances as public servants on a private course (stage).
Then again, as I often seek to find the story behind the story, this could all have been a test to see who’s paying attention.
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