The 84-year-old great-grandmother said she hadn't played golf in at least 20 years.
She didn't take a practice shot. She hasn't played golf in more than 20 years, and she was never really good at it.
But 86-year-old Mary Ann Wakfield managed to nail a 94-foot putt in a crowded college basketball stadium — with her eyes closed.
"I didn't make make that putt," Wakfield told InsideEdition.com Friday, with a hearty chuckle. "God did."
Divine intervention or no, Wakfield's awe-inspiring feat won her a new Nissan as part of the "Putt For a Car" challenge during a recent basketball game between Ole Miss and rival the University of Alabama.
After Wakfield's shot rolled gently across the entire basketball court and landed in a black hole, the crowd went wild. Wakefield went a little wild herself, throwing her arms in the air and hugging Tony the Landshark, the mascot of the Ole Miss Rebels.
But mostly, she was in a state of shock. At first, "I couldn't see the hole from where I was. It was a black hole with a black background," she said. She adjusted her stance, bent her head, and said to herself, "Hit it soft, hit it straight." When she tapped the ball, "I closed my eyes," she said.
She took up the sport in her 50s, after she retired from a long career as a television news producer. "I was not a good golfer," she stated. "I just wasn't." She puttered around a putting green at a retirement community where she previously lived, "but I never won a tournament," she said.
Sixteen months ago, she moved to Oxford, Miss., to live near her oldest daughter. She still drives, though her wheels are a little dated. "I have a 10-year-old Hyundai," she said.
Wakfield gets the keys to her new Nissan Altima on Saturday, during halftime at an Ole Miss basketball game. She can't wait to get behind the wheel.
Age, she says, truly is just a number. And it means nothing to her.
"I do everything I want to do," she said. "I've been very, very active my whole life."
She has seven children, though she lost her youngest son to a stroke five years ago. She has 14 grandchildren and four great-grandchildren, "with two on the way," she added.
She hasn't played a round of golf in "25 to 30 years," she said. She finds this very funny when discussing her recent win. "It was lined up good," she said of her putt. The rest of it was in the Lord's hands, she told herself.
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