the genealogy book

, on David B. Mulligan: an Ottawa bar + golf's do-over's Ottawa Valley origins,

There’s a pub on Ottawa’s Queen Street called Mulligans, self-described as “Ottawa’s Golf Simulator Bar.” Back in the early aughts, I would frequent this same location with Pontiac, Quebec artist Jennifer Mulligan, back when this was the location of the British-style pub known as The Mayflower II. The pub sat there for years, sibling to Elgin Street’s The Mayflower, both of which have since disappeared. The Mayflower II sat in the space of a former bank, and one could still see the door of a vault on the wall, and there was even a model train held as part of the second floor bar. If you asked nicely, the bartender would run the model train, which would push along a track set above the bar and around most of the room, sparking a steam-whistle toot as it hit a certain spot. After a few rounds on the track, the bartender would quietly switch it off.

I spent years teasing Jennifer about her namesake mistake in golf, even as far as clipping comic strip that made golf-specific Mulligan references from the newspaper to mail her anonymously. I was surprised how often it came up, American strips clipped from the Ottawa Citizen or Ottawa Sun. I suspect she always knew who was sending them.

Eventually, Jennifer discovered that her golf namesake was actually a relative, her grandfather’s cousin, who left the family home in the Ottawa Valley for further adventure. His grandson, Leighton H. Coleman III, reached out to her via email from the United States through a genealogical site, seeking further details on his grandfather’s Canadian origins. Born in Pembroke, Ontario, Jennifer Mulligan’s twice removed first cousin, David Bernard Mulligan (1869-1954), was the last of eight children (although Jennifer claims there were two further children born after him) born to Captain David Mulligan, a steamboat captain on the Ottawa River, and his wife Catherine Draper. Whereas Jennifer’s grandfather remained on the family farm in Quyon, Quebec, David Bernard became a hotelier, and at one point, was the owner and operator of the Russell House (1845-1925), the grand Ottawa hotel that pre-dated the Chateau Laurier, set at the spot at Elgin and Sparks Streets that currently hosts the National War Memorial. This is the same hotel where Governor General Lord Stanley first announced, at a dinner in 1892, celebrating the original Ottawa Hockey Club (of which Mulligan was a Director), that he would offer an annual trophy to the top Canadian ice hockey team. Stanley’s Cup, originally known as the Dominion Hockey Challenge Cup, was even won by the Ottawa Hockey Club back in 1909, during the team’s twenty-fourth season.

David Bernard soon moved to the Canadian National Hotel chain, where he became General Manager, in 1914, and remained there until 1924, when he became Manager of the Windsor Hotel in Montreal, the same year he took over duties of Manager of the Waldorf Astoria in New York. Various sources offer that he played regularly at the Country Club of Montreal golf course in Saint-Lambert during the 1920s, but it was in the United States where he became infamous. According to Douglas LaRue Smith’s Winged Foot Story: The Golf, The people, The Friendly Trees (1964), an informal history of the Winged Foot Golf Club of Mamaroneck, New York:

An early member of Winged Foot was one David B. Mulligan, a gentleman in the hotel business who came to us from Canada in 1937, when he joined Winged Foot and became president of New York’s famous Biltmore Hotel. He is described as a friendly soul and raconteur who loved to tell his life’s experiences while sitting in the upper locker room lounge [.]

Upon hearing of his death, the Chicago Daily Tribune wrote that “David B. Mulligan, 83, dean of hotel men and veteran golfer credited with originating the extra tee shot term of ‘taking a Mulligan,’ died here today after a long illness.” Once more, I suppose, into the breach. To do and re-do, this Mulligan that has entered the popular lexicon, with roots in the Ottawa Valley.

One wonders if this Ottawa-based golf pub is aware that the mistake-namesake still has relatives in the area? Should we be pushing for Jennifer or any of her siblings to at least garner a free meal? A free game?