FOREWORD by Ken Blanchard 

The Mulligan

When Wally Armstrong and I first met we immediately became soul mates and friends because we shared two things in common. First, we both love golf and had played and enjoyed the game ever since we could walk. We never met a golf game we didn’t like. To us, the worst a golf game can be is fabulous.

Secondly, we both love Jesus—not as someone trapped in a church but as our friend and Savior who wants to walk with us both on the course and off.

This little book brings together these two loves in a special way.

My mission in life is to be: a loving teacher and example of simple truths that help myself and others to awaken to the Presence of God in our lives. I have a simple mind that can only comprehend simple truths and when I find such truths I want to tell other people about them. When I do that I usually teach through stories. I am a story teller. That’s why Spencer Johnson, who was a children’s book writer, and I, chose a parable format when we wrote The One Minute Manager.  In many ways that book is a children’s book for big people.

When Wally first told me that Jesus was the greatest Mulligan of all time, you could have knocked me over. That was the most powerful simple truth I had ever heard.

I was always put off by the concept of original sin. Why did we all have to start off bad? Why couldn’t we have original potentiality—we could be good or bad depending on our choices. I also noticed if you called someone a sinner they would really get their back up. But I could buy that we all need a few mulligans, not only on the golf course but in our life. After all none of us is perfect.

My mind really started to soar with all kinds of thoughts about the power of a mulligan. First of all it is not something that you deserve or can earn. Someone else has to give it to you. You can’t just take a shot over in golf because you want to, the people playing with you have to say, “Why don’t you take a mulligan?”

Secondly, you have to be willing to receive it. Sometimes people’s egos get in the way and say, “Nah, forget it. I’ll play it where she lies.” Receiving a mulligan is a real challenge for our ego and yet if we take a mulligan we begin to realize our true potential.

I’ll never forget being with Chuck Hogan, the great golf mental coach, at a meeting in late June in Monterey, California, a number of years ago. We finished our session at four o’clock. Chuck suggested we go to Pebble Beach and see if we could get on the course. It was hard to believe but no one was on the first tee so we headed out. Chuck asked me to play a special way—anytime I wanted a mulligan I could take it—not just on the first hole but anywhere—in the trap, on the green, anywhere. I could take a mulligan anytime I wanted. I thought that would be fun.

I was amazed at what happened. Just as Chuck predicted I played the greatest round of my life and at the end of the round I was hardly using any mulligans.

Chuck smiled and said, “I just wanted to show you how good you could be if you learned to make fewer and fewer mistakes.”

What a simple truth. Everyone makes mistakes on the golf course—the best golfers just make fewer mistakes.

Isn’t that true about life too? We all make mistakes. The best people just make fewer. If that is true, how do we make fewer mistakes? We have a friend like Jesus who not only forgives us but who still loves us when we goof, and the more we walk with Him and let His love manifest itself in us, the less forgiveness we will need because we don’t want to disappoint Him or ourselves. We just start to live better lives.

Wally and I sat down together for a half day at Calloway Gardens in Georgia during the Spring of 2004, and talked into a tape recorder about writing The Mulligan.

When I sat down that June/July at our cabin on Skaneateles Lake in upstate New York, the book really wrote me. The Good Lord just flowed through me and the manuscript was finished in ten days. Since then we have shared it with many friends and colleagues and got kudos and also many helpful suggestions.

I love this book. It will not only improve your golf game but will change your life and hopefully the lives of people you touch. It is a parable told through the eyes of Paul, an uptight business man who thinks life is all about achievement and performance. He learns a different way from the Old Pro—a wonderful mentor and friend who comes into his life to teach him about golf, life and his friend, Jesus. The Old Pro is a cross between George Burns in Oh God, and Clarence, the angel who saved Jimmy Stewart in It’s a Wonderful Life.

Read this book. Share it with others and let it change your life and the lives of those you touch.

Thank you, Wally, for letting me walk with you and your friend, Jesus, and in the process work with our friend, Jesus, on this book. What a blessing!