Ex-MSU star Mark Mulder to defend celebrity golf title

There was a time that Mark Mulder’s golf had to revolve around his work as a baseball analyst.

These days, it’s the other way around.

Mulder will defend his American Century Celebrity Championship golf title starting Thursday in Lake Tahoe, Nevada. He is the favorite to repeat as champion.

“It’s a great feeling while being awful all at the same time. I love that feeling, but it’s something that’s uncomfortable and something I’m not used to,” the former Michigan State and major league pitcher said in preparation for this week’s four-day tournament. “But each and every year that I’ve played in this thing, I think I’ve gotten better with it and learned how to deal with it. I think that’s led to maybe why I’ve played better year after year and finally winning last season.”

Mulder left his analyst job at ESPN before this season to join the broadcast team for the Oakland Athletics, which made him the No. 2 overall pick in 1998 – the highest any Spartan has ever been selected in the MLB First-Year Player Draft.

In his second retirement from pro baseball, Mulder has refocused his attention on his golf game with early success.

A lot of drive

It started with tournaments on the Golf Channel Am Tour that produced 20 first-place finishes between 2010 and 2014. Mulder also earned a first-round lead in the premier Lake Tahoe event in 2012 before fading.

“The difference is that I have so much confidence in baseball. In golf, I tend not to,” said Mulder, who turns 39 on Aug. 5. “I’m a good player, but in no way am I a golfer like I was as a baseball player. I never really got nervous with baseball. I was anxious for games to start. … When I get here and get on the first tee, I’m nervous.”

A year ago, he broke through to capture his first American Century Celebrity Championship title with a fourth-round 67, finishing with 82 points in the modified Stableford scoring system to win the $125,000 championship check.

Mulder said he planned to bet on himself a year ago before things went awry.

“One thing led to another, and I forgot. My parents were walking back from the hotel we were at to a different hotel, and I told them to stop there and put X amount of dollars on myself,” he said. “My parents, being the way they are and completely cheap, they refused to do it. I said, ‘I’ll pay you back tomorrow, it’s not that big of a deal.’ And they were like, ‘No, you shouldn’t put that much money on it.’”

That was at 8-to-1 odds. Mulder is the favorite this year to repeat and planned to get his bet in early this time.

Eyes on the green

In two years at MSU, Mulder went 13-8 with a 2.89 ERA, 169 strikeouts and 31 walks. His junior season in 1998, the 6-foot-6 lefty from South Holland, Illinois, set the school's single-season strikeout record with 113 and also hit a team-best .335 with 11 doubles and five home runs en route to being named a third-team All-American by Baseball America.

Mulder pitched with the Athletics from 2000-04, then moved on to the St. Louis Cardinals from 2005-08. He went 103-60 with a 4.18 earned run average, made two All-Star teams and won a World Series ring with St. Louis in 2006.

During that time, Mulder teamed with Kirk Gibson to help MSU’s baseball program raise funds to renovate Old College Field and Kobs Field and recruit donors to help build McLane Baseball Stadium. Mulder donated the money for the field's dugouts and continues to keep a close eye on what happens inside of them.

“It’s great to see how well Michigan State did and how many guys have been drafted,” Mulder said. “Jake Boss has really turned the program around compared to when I was there, when it really wasn’t that good, to where it is now as a team that’s competing to possibly go to the regionals every year, competing for a Big Ten championship. I love seeing that, and I’m happy for them.”

Back in the Bay

Arm injuries forced Mulder's first retirement in June 2010, almost two years after he pitched in his final game. An attempted comeback with the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim in 2014 ended with a ruptured Achilles’ tendon, forcing his baseball retirement for good.

That sent Mulder back to broadcast booth at ESPN, where he had been part of its Baseball Tonight crew and called some games. He continues to live in Arizona but travels to Oakland for 20 games a year for the A’s broadcast team. That flexibility has allowed him to focus more on his golf game than he has in previous years in preparation for his title defense.

It also has landed him a visible role among a strong Bay Area contingent of former Spartan star athletes that includes Golden State Warriors basketball star Draymond Green and newly drafted Oakland Raiders Connor Cook and Shilique Calhoun on the football field.

“Drew Stanton lives near me in Scottsdale. And there’s a bunch of Michigan State guys (in the Bay Area) that have kind of come up big in the last few years in different sports,” Mulder said. “I’ve stopped in and said hello and met Draymond a few times before. It’s just cool to see that guys from Michigan State are doing so well.”

Mulder – who golfs right-handed, despite pitching and hitting lefty – is one of them, now in a second sport.

He still has a long way to go to catch former big league pitcher Rick Rhoden, who has won a record eight celebrity tournaments in Lake Tahoe. But golf has allowed Mulder to channel his athletic and competitive nature on the course. And despite his success, he still feels he has a lot of room for growth.

“The learning experience with this tournament was figuring out how to handle it mentally and be able to control your emotions out on the course,” he said. “I struggled with that for quite a few years. It’s just something you have to learn. I’d never played competitive golf, especially on a stage like this. It just took me a little while, and each year, it’s seemed to get a little better and better.”

Contact Chris Solari at (517) 377-1070 or csolari@lsj.com.