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live up to his potential as a pro golfer?

Dallie had made up his mind to win the Orange Blossom Open this year
and put an end to his string of bad luck. For one thing, he liked
Jacksonville—it was the only Florida city in his opinion that hadn't
tried to turn itself into a theme park—and he liked the course where
the Orange Blossom was being played. Despite his lack of sleep, he'd
made a solid showing in Monday's qualifying round and then, fully
rested, he'd played brilliantly in the Wednesday Pro-Am. Success had
bolstered his self-confidence—success
and the fact that the Golden
Bear, from Columbus, Ohio, had come down with a bad case of the flu
and
been forced to withdraw.

Charlie Conner, the Jacksonville sportswriter, took a sip from his own
glass of Stroh's and tried to slouch back in his chair with the same
easy grace he observed in Dallie Beaudine. "Do you think Jack
Nicklaus's withdrawal will affect the Orange Blossom this week?" he
asked.

In Dallie's mind that was one of the world's stupidest questions, right
up there with "Was it as good for you as it was for me?" but he
pretended to think it over anyway. "Well, now, Charlie, when you take
into consideration the fact that Jack Nicklaus is on his way to
becoming the greatest player in the history of golf, I'd say there's a
pretty fair chance we'll notice he's gone."

The sportswriter looked at Dallie skeptically. "The greatest player?
Aren't you forgetting a few people
like Ben Hogan and Arnold Palmer?"
He paused reverentially before he uttered the next name, the holiest
name in golf. "Aren't you forgetting Bobby Jones?"

"Nobody's ever played the game like Jack Nicklaus," Dallie said firmly.
"Not even Bobby Jones."

Skeet had been talking to Luella, the bar's owner, but when he heard
Nicklaus's name mentioned he frowned and asked the sportswriter about
the Cowboys' chances to make it all the way to the Super Bowl. Skeet
didn't like Dallie talking about Nicklaus, so he had gotten into the
habit of interrupting any conversation that shifted in that direction.
Skeet
said talking about Nicklaus made Dallie's game go
straight to hell.
Dallie wouldn't admit it, but Skeet was pretty much right.

As Skeet and the sportswriter talked about the Cowboys, Dallie tried to
shake off the depression that settled over him every fall like
clockwork by indulging in some positive thinking. The '74 season was
nearly over, and he hadn't done all that bad for himself. He'd won a
few thousand in prize money and double that in crazy betting games—
playing best ball left-handed, betting on hitting the middle zero on
the 200-yard sign at a driving range, playing an improvised course
through a dried-out gully and a forty-foot concrete sewer pipe. He'd
even tried Trevino's trick of playing a few holes by throwing the
ball
in the air and hitting it with a thirty-two-ounce Dr Pepper bottle, but
the bottle glass wasn't as thick now as it had been when the Super Mex
had invented that particular wrinkle in the bottomless grab bag
of golf
betting games, so Dallie'd given it up after they'd had to take five
stitches in his right hand. Despite his injury, he'd earned enough
money to pay for gas and keep Skeet and him comfortable. It wasn't a
fortune, but it was a hell of a lot more than old Jaycee Beaudine had
ever made hanging around the wharves along Buffalo Bayou in Houston.

Jaycee had been dead for a year now, his life washed away by alcohol
and a mean temper. Dallie hadn't found out about his father's death
until a few months after it had happened when he'd run into one of
Jaycee's old drinking buddies in a Nacogdoches saloon. Dallie wished he
had known at the time so he could have stood next to Jaycee's coffin,
looked down at his father's corpse, and spit right between the old
man's closed eyes. One glob of spit for all the bruises he'd earned
from Jaycee's fists, all the abuse he'd taken throughout his childhood,
all the times he'd listened to Jaycee call him worthless ... a pretty
boy