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He was so caught up in his anger, so immersed in her scorn, that he couldn't quite comprehend the consequences of the rapidly changing leader board. Oh, he understood what it said, all right. He saw the numbers. He knew that the tournament leaders playing behind him had fallen back; he knew Seve had dropped off. He could read the numbers, all right, but it wasn't until he'd birdied the fourteenth hole that he could actually comprehend in his gut the fact that he had pulled ahead, that his angry, vicious attack on the course had put him at two under par for
the tournament. With four holes left to play, he was tied for first place in the United States Classic.
Tied with Jack Nicklaus.
Dallie shook his head, trying to clear it as he walked toward the fifteenth tee. How could this have happened to him? How had it happened that Dallas Beaudine from Wynette, Texas, was going one-on-one with Jack Nicklaus? He couldn't think about it. If he thought about it, the Bear would start talking to him in his head.
You're going to fail, Beaudine. You're going to prove everything Jaycee used to say about you. Everything I've been saying for years. You're not man enough to pull this off. Not against me.
He turned back toward the gallery and saw that she was watching him. As he glared at her, she placed one sandaled foot in front of the other and bent her knee slightly so that ridiculous little polka-dot flounce at the bottom of her dress rode up higher on her legs. She pressed her shoulders back, making the soft cotton jersey cling to her breasts, outlining them in memorable detail. Here's your trophy, that little body told him quite plainly. Don't forget what you're playing for.
He slammed the ball down the fifteenth fairway, promising himself that when this was all over he would never again let himself near a woman with a bitch's heart. As soon as the tournament was finished, he was going to teach Francesca Day the lesson of her life by marrying the first sweet-voiced country girl who came along.
He scrambled for par on the fifteenth and the sixteenth holes. So did Nicklaus. Jack's son was with him the whole way, handing him clubs, helping read the greens. Dallie's own son stood by the ropes wearing a Born-to-Raise-Hell T-shirt and a look of furious determination on his face. Dallie's heart swelled every time he looked at him. Damn, he was a feisty little kid.
The seventeenth hole was short and nasty. Jack talked a little bit to the crowd as he walked toward the green. He had cut his teeth on pressure shots, and there was nothing he loved more than a tight spot. Dallie had sweat through his golf shirt and through two gloves. He was famous for joking with the crowd, but now he maintained an ominous silence. Nicklaus was playing some of the best golf of his life, chomping up the fairways, burning up the greens. Forty-seven was too old to play like that, but somebody had forgotten to tell Jack. And now only Dallie Beaudine stood between the greatest player in the history of the sport and one more title.
Somehow Dallie pulled off another par, but Jack did, too. They were still tied going into the final hole.
Cameramen balancing portable video units on their shoulders followed every movement as the two players headed for the eighteenth tee. The network announcers heaped one superlative after another on them while word of the blood contest taking place on the Old Testament spread throughout the world of sports, sending dials flicking and the network's Sunday afternoon ratings soaring into the stratosphere. The crowd around the players had grown to the thousands, their excitement feverish because they knew that whatever happened, they couldn't lose. This crowd had been charmed by Dallie when he was still a rookie, and they had been waiting for years for him to win a major title. But the thought of being on the spot when Jack won again was irresistible, too. It was the 1986 Masters all over again, with Jack charging like a bull toward the finish, as unstoppable as the force of nature.
Dallie and Jack both hit solid drives off the eighteenth tee. The hole was a long par five with a lake placed diabolically in front of all but the left corner of the green. They called it Hogan's Lake, because it had cost the great Ben Hogan the U.S. Classic championship in 1951 when he'd tried to hit over it instead of around it. They could just as easily have called it Arnie's Lake or Watson's Lake or Snead's Lake because at one time or other all of them had fallen victim to its treachery.
Jack didn't mind gambling, but he hadn't won every important championship in the world by taking foolhardy chances, and he had no intention of going directly for the flag by making a suicide shot over that lake. He lined up his second shot safely to the left of Hogan's Lake and hit a beautiful fade that landed just short of the green. The crowd let out a roar and then held its collective breath as the ball bounced up in the air and came to a stop on the edge of the green, sixty feet from the pin. The noise was deafening. Nicklaus had made a spectacular shot, a magic shot, a shot for a possible birdie on the hole—a shot that even gave him an outside chance at an eagle.
Dallie felt panic, as insidious as poison, creeping through his veins. In order to keep up with Nicklaus he had to make that same shot—hit to the left of the lake and then bounce the ball up on the green. It was a difficult shot in the best of circumstances, but with thousands of people watching from the gallery, millions more watching at home on their televisions, with a tournament title at stake and hands that wouldn't stop shaking, he knew he couldn't pull it off.
Seve hit to the left of the lake on his second shot, but the ball fell well short of the green. Panic rose up in Dallie's throat until it seemed to be choking him. He couldn't do this—he just couldn't! He spun around, instinctively searching out Francesca. Sure enough, her chin shot up in the air, her snooty little nose lifted higher—daring him, challenging him—
And then, as he watched, it all fell apart for her. She couldn't pull it off any longer. Her chin dropped, her expression softened, and she gazed at him with eyes that saw straight through into his soul, eyes that understood his panic and begged him to set it aside. For her. For Teddy. For all of them.
You're going to disappoint her, Beaudine, the Bear taunted. You've disappointed everybody you've ever loved in your life, and you're getting ready to do it again.
Francesca's lips moved, forming a single word. Please.
Dallie looked down at the grass, thinking about everything Francie had said to him, and then he walked over to Skeet. “I'm going straight for the flag,” he said. “I'm going to hit across the lake.”
He waited for Skeet to yell at him, to tell him he was all kinds of a fool. But Skeet merely looked thoughtful. “You're going to have to carry that ball two hundred and sixty yards and make it stop on a nickel.”
“I know that,” Dallie replied quietly.
“If you make the safe shot—go around the lake—you've got a good chance at tying Nicklaus.”
“I'm tired of safe shots,” Dallie said. “I'm going for the flag.” Jaycee had been dead for years, and Dallie didn't have a damned thing left to prove to that bastard. Francie was right. Not trying at all was a bigger sin than failing. He took a last look over toward Francesca, wanting her respect more than he'd ever wanted anything. She and Holly Grace were clutching each other's hands as if they were getting ready to fall off the edge of the world. Teddy's legs had gotten tired and he was sitting on the grass, but the look of determination hadn't faded from his face.
Dallie focused all his attention on what he had to do, trying to control the rush of adrenaline that would harm him more than it would help.
Hogan couldn't carry the lake, the Bear whispered. What makes you think you can?
Because I want it more than Hogan ever did, Dallie answered back. I just plain want it more.
When he lined up for the ball and the spectators realized what he was going to do, they emitted a murmur of disbelief. Nicklaus's face was as expressionless as ever. If he thought Dallie was making a mistake, he kept it to himself.
You'll never do it, the Bear whispered.
You just watch me, Dallie replied.
His club lashed through the ball. It shot into the sky on a high, strong trajectory and then faded to the right so that it hung over the water—over the center of the lake that had claimed Ben Hogan and Arnold Palmer and so many other legends. It sailed through the sky for an eternity, but it still hadn't cleared the lake when it began to come down. The spectators held their breath, their bodies frozen into position like extras in an old science-fiction movie. Dallie stood like a statue watching the slow, ominous descent. In the background, a flag with the number 18 printed on it caught a puff of breeze and lifted ever so slightly, so that in all the universe only that flag
