Tommy's Honor

From Mr Science . . . this is so profound it boggles the mind . . .

I'm reading a book I think you'd like.  It's about the life and times of Old Tom Morris and Young Tom Morris.

Young Tom was playing a match against Davy Strath, and was down 3 with 3 to play.

Strath's supporters erupted in what the Citizen called "loud and prolonged cheering".  Their man had entered that state of grace in which he could win but not lose.  He was dormy.

"It is doubtful whether golf, or indeed life, has any sensation to offer equal to that of becoming dormy," Bernard Darwin wrote.  Reflecting on "the ultimate poignancy of dorminess," he called it "a blessed relaxation after strain ... a moment of almost delicious bliss."  A match-play golfer leading by the same number of holes left to play can stumble, lose them all and have to settle for a draw, but he is immune to defeat.  The word dormy, wrote Darwin, "is the only one in our language which signifies that for one transcendent moment we can snap our fingers under the very nose of Fate." 

yes, indeed: a grandson of THE Darwin . . . one has to consider the extra piquancy of “dorminess” to one who had an undoubted intimate acquaintance with the perils and pitfalls of Nature-Red-in-Tooth-and-Claw Darwinism, if you see what I mean . . .