She’s Playing College Golf. She’s 63. – The Wall Street Journal

Honestly, the sophomore was zonked. Fifty-four holes in two days was a lot of golf. 

But she was happy. This was what she’d signed up for, and though her background was unusual—“I’m a bit of a nontraditional student,” she once told her classmates—this was right where she wanted to be. 

The college sophomore is 63. 

Her name is Debbie Blount, and she’s an underclassman at Reinhardt University in Waleska, Ga. A couple of years ago, not long after the death of her husband, Ben, Blount started thinking about making a radical move in her life, and going back to school. In 1976, as Blount was graduating from Dunwoody High in Dunwoody, Ga., she considered college—a guidance counselor suggested Reinhardt—but Blount went to school to become an X-ray technician instead, at the urging of her parents. 

“They said, ‘Get a medical job, and you’ll always have something to fall back on,’ ” she said. “I just did what they told me.” 

Since then, Debbie’s life had taken several winding roads—she’d worked in hospitals, and then became a ski instructor in Colorado, moving part-time to Vail, but she was back home in Georgia when she fell in love with Ben, and after she fell in love with Ben, she fell in love with golf. 

“I took lessons the week after we got back from our honeymoon,” Debbie said. Golf became their thing to do. She got good at it; Ben was her caddie when she qualified for the USGA Senior Women’s Amateur in 2011.

Now she longed for a change. “After my husband passed away, I was getting stale,” Blount said. “I love golf, but I’d lost my passion for it, and I was looking for something fun and different.” 

Her path returned her to Reinhardt, a school she considered more than four decades ago. “It was the combination of golf and getting a degree,” she said. “I would probably would not have gone back to school if I couldn’t play golf.”

It was a momentous choice. Blount’s the first person in her family to attend college. 

“She’s doing something that she’s always wanted to do,” said Blount’s mother, Loraine Seidel, now 95. “Debbie, when she makes up her mind to do something, she does it.”

Blount wasn’t interested in part-time college or auditing classes; She wanted the complete experience. She commutes to campus from her home outside Atlanta at least three days a week. Introducing herself at one of her first in-person classes—Blount’s initial year of learning was virtual, due to the pandemic—she stood up and said, “I’m 63 years old, and I’m on the women’s golf team here. I’m living a dream of being a college athlete.” 

The class broke out in applause. Talking about it still makes Blount choke up. 

“I was like, ‘Holy cow, these are all 19-year-olds,’ ” she said. “It was bizarre, but it really made me feel good.” 

As for the golf team, the Reinhardt Eagles are a close bunch. There are only six of them currently, and besides the golf—their last tournament was the Firehawk Invitational in Athens, Ala., hosted by Tennessee Southern—there’s a lot of time in the van (Debbie sits middle row, left, next to the phone charger), at team meals, and hotels that won’t win five diamond awards.

“We have no choice but to get along,” said Blount’s teammate, Brooke Newsome, 20. “We’re with each other all the time.”

Another Reinhardt teammate, 21-year-old Lauren Welte, admits she wasn’t terribly enthused last season when she heard about Debbie joining the Eagles. 

“I was like, ‘There’s no way they’re putting a 62-year-old on our team,’” Welte said. “I wasn’t upset over it, but I didn’t want our team to be a laughingstock. I didn’t want to be known for that.”

“Then I met her, and my whole perspective changed,” Welte said. “Seeing her be so appreciative over the little things was a really big eye-opener for me. It was a lot of fun watching her experience it for the first time. I told her: ‘I’m sorry that I was so doubtful of you from the beginning.’ We laugh about it now, but she’s one of my best friends. It’s strange saying that, but I truly mean it.”

Blount’s coach, Evans Nichols, is 26. He also drives the van. Nichols said Blount delivered a shot of energy during a challenging pandemic moment for everyone in college athletics.

“She never failed to bring that glass-half-full attitude,” Nichols said. “It’s been a pleasure.”

Blount’s got a nickname—“the Ancient Eagle”—and is now on a partial scholarship. On Wednesday, the Ancient Eagle played in the third position as Reinhardt broke its 54-hole team scoring record and finished fourth at the tournament. 

Blount jokes that she’s “the steady plow mule who doesn’t go real high, or real low.”

“She’s a phenomenal putter,” said Nichols. “I feel pretty confident when she’s inside 10 feet from the hole.”

There are always younger players who can rip it deep down the fairway, but Blount keeps it steady. 

“It’s not about hitting the ball. It’s about swinging and letting the ball get in the way,” she said. “Everybody wants to hit the long stuff, when the short game is the most important.”

Blount joked now that college athletes are allowed to accept “name, image and likeness” sponsors, she should be sponsored by the anti-arthritis gel she carries in her golf bag. On the tee box and at school, Blount is now a minor celebrity, chronicled on Golf.com and appearing on the Golf Channel.

“We love talking about Debbie,” said Reinhardt’s president, Mark Roberts. “I think it’s a wonderful model to have someone who made a decision to go back and get an education—not really for a career, but to enrich her life.”

Blount’s an “interdisciplinary studies” major at Reinhardt, with concentrations in sports studies, criminal justice, history and religion. Her plan is to try to graduate a year early, in 2023, alongside some of her Eagles teammates. 

And after that? 

“I wasn’t planning on working after college, but the experience has led me to think maybe I could coach some,” she said. She wasn’t looking to add a master’s degree, but Debbie Blount has discovered she really likes school. She wouldn’t rule it out. 

Write to Jason Gay at Jason.Gay@wsj.com