Mark William McNulty (born 24 March 1953) is a Zimbabwean-Irish professional golfer. He was one of the leading players on the European Tour from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s, and featured in the top 10 of the Official World Golf Ranking for 83 weeks from 1987 to 1992.[3]
McNulty was born in Bindura, Southern Rhodesia. He was raised on a farm in the Centenary area of Zimbabwe. When McNulty was one year old, his natural father was killed in a shooting accident. His step-father was an amateur pilot who had an airstrip on the farm. When his step-father was diagnosed with epilepsy, he was forced to give up flying. He converted the airstrip into a three-hole golf course, where Mark first learned to play golf.
By 1986, he was a dominant player on the Southern African Tour picking up seven official wins in that year and also winning South Africa's most lucrative event, the Million Dollar Challenge. In the same year, he finished in the top-10 on the European Tour's Order of Merit for the first time, placing sixth. He had six top-10 European Order of Merit finishes in total, including second places in 1987 and 1990. The last of these was in 1996, when he came fifth. His win tally on the European Tour was 16, including the 1996Volvo Masters, which was the European equivalent of the PGA Tour's Tour Championship. He won the Sunshine Tour Order of Merit nine times.
When McNulty turned fifty and became eligible to play senior golf he chose to take part in the U.S.-based Champions Tour. His first full season in 2004 was highly successful with three wins (including the Charles Schwab Cup Championship) and a seventh-place finish on the money list. In 2007 he won the JELD-WEN Tradition, one of the five major championships on the over-50 tour. It was McNulty's sixth career win on the Champions Tour. His seventh win came in 2009 at the Principal Charity Classic with a playoff win over Nick Price and Fred Funk. In 2011 he won the Liberty Mutual Legends of Golf.
Personal life
In November 1981, McNulty received serious facial and neck injuries when his car in high speed collided with a bus near his parents' farm in Zimbabwe, on his way to the ICL International in Johannesburg, South Africa.[6] Despite his injuries, McNulty played in the 1981 South African Open the following month and won a tournament in Durban in January 1982, eight weeks after the accident.[7]
McNulty became an Irish citizen in 2003 at the age of 50. He was eligible to do so because his maternal grandmother was born in Ballymena in Northern Ireland. He stated that his reason for doing so was his concern that as a non-resident Zimbabwean it could take him up to two years to get his passport renewed if he lost it. Commentators elaborated that the farm that his family had been managing for 40-something years had been confiscated by the Mugabe regime.[6]
He now lives in Sunningdale, England.[6] He and his wife Allison and they have two children together: Matthew (born 1985) and Catherine (born 1988). McNulty also has two stepchildren and two grandchildren.[8]
McNulty is the Director of the Mark McNulty Junior Golf Foundation. It is a non-profit organisation whose objective is to use golf as a medium to improve a child's development on and off the golf course while growing the game of golf.[9]
Amateur wins
1974 Rhodesia Amateur Championship
1977 South African Amateur Stroke Play Championship
Rhodesia (until 1978)
Zimbabwe (1979–2002)
Ireland (2003–)
