Free Fancy Pants by Susan Elizabeth Phillips

history.

At the end of fourteen holes, Dallie was still in the lead at sixteen
under par. With only four holes to go, Johnny Miller was coming up
fast, but he was still four strokes behind. Dallie put Miller out of
his mind and concentrated on his own game. As he sank a five-foot putt,
he told himself that he was born to play golf. Some champions are made,
but others are created at the moment of conception. He was finally
going to live up to the reputation the magazines had created for him.
With his name sitting at the top of the leader board of the Orange
Blossom Open, Dallie felt as if he'd come out of the womb with a
brand-new Titleist ball clenched in his hand.

His strides grew longer as he walked down the fifteenth fairway. The
network cameras followed his
every move, and confidence surged through him. Those final-round
defeats of the past
two years were
all behind him now. They were flukes, nothing but
flukes. This Texas boy was about to set the golf
world on fire.

The sun hit his blond hair and warmed his shirt. In the gallery, a
shapely female fan blew him a kiss.
He laughed and made a play out of
catching the kiss in midair and slipping it into his pocket.

Skeet held out an eight-iron for an easy approach shot to the fifteenth
green. Dallie gripped the club, assessed the lie, and took his stance.
He felt strong and in control. His lead was solid, his game was on,
nothing could snatch away this victory.

Nothing except the Bear.

You don't really think you can win
this thing, do you, Beaudine?

The Bear's voice popped into Dallie's head sounding just as clear as if
Jack Nicklaus were standing
beside him.

Champions like me win golf
tournaments, not failures like you.

Go away, Dallie's brain
screamed. Don't show up now! Sweat began to
break out on his forehead. He adjusted his grip, tried to loosen
himself up again, tried not to listen to that voice.

What have you got to show for
yourself? What have you done with your
life except screw things up?

Leave me alone! Dallie stepped
away from the ball, rechecked the line,
and settled in again. He drew
back the club and hit. The crowd let out
a collective groan as the ball drifted to the left and landed in
high
rough. In Dallie's mind, the Bear shook his big blond head.

That's exactly what I'm talking
about, Beaudine. You just don't have
the stuff it takes to make a champion.

Skeet, his expression clearly worried, came up next to Dallie. "Where
in hell did that shot come from? Now you're going to have to scramble
to make par."

"I just lost my balance," Dallie snapped, stalking off toward the green.

You just lost your guts , the
Bear whispered back.

The "Bear had begun to appear in Dallie's head not long after Dallie
had started playing on the pro tour. Before that, it had
only been Jaycee's voice he had heard in his head. Logically, Dallie
understood that he'd created the Bear himself, and he knew there was a
big difference between the soft-spoken, well-mannered Jack Nicklaus of
real life and this creature from hell who spoke like Nicklaus, and
looked like Nicklaus, and knew all Dallie's deepest secrets.

But logic didn't have much to do with private devils, and it wasn't
accidental that Dallie's private devil
had taken the form of Jack
Nicklaus, a man he admired just about more than anyone else—a man with
a beautiful family, the respect of his peers, and the greatest game of
golf the world had ever seen. A
man who wouldn't know how to fail if he
tried.

You're a kid from the wrong side of
the tracks, the Bear whispered as
Dallie lined up a short putt on
the sixteenth green. It lipped the edge
of the cup and scooted off to the side.

Johnny Miller gave Dallie a sympathetic look, then sank his own putt
for a par. Two holes later when Dallie hit his drive on eighteen, his
four-shot lead had been reduced to a tie with Miller.

Your old man told you you'd never
amount to much, the Bear said as
Dallie's drive sliced viciously to
the right. Why didn 't you listen?