The Mulligan, which is named after golf’s most informal rule allowing a fellow player to replay a stroke, stars the venerable film and TV performer Pat Boone and actor Eric Close (Nashville, American Sniper).
The film, based on the book by Armstrong and Ken Blanchard and produced by Rick Eldridge, centers on Paul McAllister, an extremely driven CEO (Close) whose sole focus on his career catches up with him—to the point that he winds up separated from his wife and estranged from his son.
As he begins to realize the emotional consequences from the way he’s been living and experiences the pain of estrangement, he encounters a new friend in Boone’s character known only as “the Old Pro.”
With the golf course as a backdrop, the Old Pro challenges Paul to re-prioritize his life. The narrative’s lessons relate to taking a shot both off the tee and at life, and how fleeting each can prove. Whether it’s being be at the top of the leaderboard one moment and then finding yourself in an impossible lie after an errant shot the next, the Old Pro schools McAllister in second chances.
“What’s great about a game of golf with friends is that more times than not, it’s ‘Hey, take a mulligan.’ It’s this gesture of grace. Go easy. We’re not playing a tour,” Close told Newsweek. “That is a beautiful message of what God’s love is—it’s ‘Hey, I love you and I want to give you another chance to get it right.’”
“We all need mulligans in life. We’d all like to have do-overs in our lives, and this film says you can have second chances,” said Boone.
Both avid golfers and men of faith in real life, Boone and Close couldn’t have been more perfect for each role.
Close, who landed his first acting role in the early ’90s and is best known for his TV roles in CBS’s mystery Without a Trace, ABC’s drama Nashville and his part in Clint Eastwood’s American Sniper, is a strong amateur player in Hollywood circles and beyond. He said the film’s golf-tied identity and its redemptive theme resonated with him.
“When I say the game of golf transformed my life more than any other single activity that literally changed my life in a major way is the game of golf—by the friendships through the game,” said Close.
He described the film as one that explores a number of individuals who are each having their own mini or large crisis of faith. It also weaves in vignettes of golf history, and co-stars Tanya Christiansen, Charmin Lee and features special appearances by sportscaster Jim Nantz, commentator Jim Szoke and PGA champion Tom Lehman.
“They’re trying to do their best but something is missing,” said Close. “It’s a series of people’s stories and how they impact each other to say ‘Hey, this is how we dealt with our own mess in our own lives, and how God was in the middle.’”
Boone, who appeared in over a dozen films back in Hollywood’s heyday, had 38 Top 40 hits and, according to Billboard magazine, is the second biggest charting artist of the late 1950s behind Elvis Presley, was drawn to the story for his own reasons. One of which, he joked, was the opportunity it gave him to wear his beloved Payne Stewart-style Tom Barry knickers.
“Clint [Eastwood] looks like a grease monkey—like he just crawled out from underneath a car,” quipped Boone to Newsweek about his times playing golf with the storied actor and director. “I like to dress like a golfer!”
Back in the day when The AT&T Pebble Beach Pro Am was known as the Bing Crosby National Pro-Amateur—or just the “Crosby Clambake”—Boone played alongside Crosby, Sam Snead, Jack Nicklaus, Gary Player, Jack Lemmon and Eastwood. Besides playing Pebble Beach 18 times, he was host to other tournaments with Frank Sinatra, Perry Como and Bob Hope.
“I would have loved to have been a golf pro, so this was an ideal role for me and I loved doing it,” said Boone, now 87.
As a well-known evangelical Christian working in Hollywood, Boone and his wife Shirley would often host Bible studies for golfers on the road. He described the movie as a “gospel-themed film” with lessons to be learned in golf that can carry into one’s personal life.
“The bloom is off the rose in a marriage or business—people start losing their way,” said Boone, noting it’s the same in golf. “You can be a champ one week and a loser the next. It’s a game [where] everyone seems to envy you for a year or two if you’re on top. But in most cases, the top golfers go through periods when they don’t figure into the tournament winners any more, and they have to regain what is lost. But golf is a great character builder and retainer. It’s great when you see a guy from out of the pack come back.”
“When you really think about golf and faith, you know I think God invented golf—it spells Game Of Life First,” Blanchard explained. “Sometimes you get good breaks you don’t deserve, sometimes you get good breaks you do deserve, sometimes you’re playing better than you should and you deal with a success, sometimes you’re playing worse and you got to deal with failure.”
“It’s all in four-and-a-half hours,” he laughed. “It’s really kind of an amazing process.”
For Boone and Close, the experience of filming in the small town of Toccoa, Georgia was unforgettable in itself. The two grew close while sharing meals and going over lines together in what both described as a stunningly beautiful area. In one scene, Boone cried on cue—something he’d never been able to in his career before.
The whole undertaking gave credence to his line in the movie, “This is not church. This is a cathedral!” he said.
Both actors admitted to the power of being granted a “mulligan” a time or two, whether on the golf course, or in the course of their real lives.
“We all have those mulligan moments in our lives,” Close told Newsweek, “where we think ‘Boy, did I mess up’. It doesn’t mean you go through life and expect these mulligans and live your life however you want. I think grace is one of those things that comes with a realization that you need it.”
He also noted that the character of Paul McAllister was actually a guy with a lot of integrity, but was hindered by his pride.
“It wasn’t this story of a massive fall from grace—he doesn’t have to be a really bad guy—his error is that he’s not humble,” explained Close. “When we make worldly things of more importance than our relationship with God and at the expense of relationships and heath, something is going to suffer. But even though there are consequences, we can get a second chance.”
As Boone explained, a mulligan is normally not allowed according to the Royal and Ancient rules of golf. However. in a friendly game if you really muff a shot you can turn to your partner and say “Can I have a mulligan?”
“But life is God’s course and he can grant mulligans,” said Boone. “You can get a do-over.”
The Mulligan is in theaters Monday, April 18 and Tuesday, April 19. Tickets can be purchased at themulliganmovie.com
