Nice Jumper

by Tom Cox

As a teenager in Nottingham, Tom Cox was possessed. Despite the best endeavours of his frankly rather groovy parents, nascent fashion sense and regular exposure to credible music from an early age, he was inexorably drawn into the bizarre, esoteric world that is golf, with its male-bonding rituals and strange trousers. And thus a strange hybrid was born -- from 1988 to 1995, Tom was Midlands golf's answer to Iggy Pop.

Assisted by his fellow junior members at the local club, he cut a swathe through the golfing establishment, putting dead animals in his fellow golfers' shoes, setting fire to the
club professional's shop, bringing Colin Montgomerie close to tears and repeatedly wearing the wrong colour of socks. On the golf course he felt simultaneously at home and somehow alienated. But Tom also wanted to be (and became) the best, taking five years out of normal adolescent existence to live, breathe, walk and talk nothing but the sport he loved.

Nice Jumper is the story of how Tom tried to fit in, failed, got down to a handicap of two, tried to fit in again, got suspended from the club, got corrupted by rock and roll, then attempted to corrupt golf itself. Original, poignant and highly entertaining, it's a book about one teenager's obsessive attempts to attain sporting nirvana - despite the slings and arrows of outrageous fashion.

Genres: Autobiography

352 pages, Paperback

First published August 4, 2003

Reviews

[Ian · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tom Cox has hippy parents who decorate their walls with existentialist German nudes and listen to the Ramones and Bob Dylan. So, at the age of 13, in an unusual act of teenage rebellion, he turns to golf.

What follows is a funny, quirky coming of age story set in a world of crimplene sweaters, graphite-shafted drivers and teacakes. Like all the best tales of growing up it veers from laugh-out-loud to cringe twinge within a few pages.

To gain maximum enjoyment from the book it helps if you've been a teenager, but you don't need to know much about golf beyond the fact that it involves hitting a ball with a stick with a view to getting it in a hole.

[Jenn · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'd probably happily read Tom Cox's shopping list - he has a way with words and humour that isn't just limited to sad cats!

[Luana · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you know Cox from his folk horror or his pastoral non-fiction, this is an odd dive into a very left-field part of his life: a teenage tryst with (semi) professional golf. The narrative of a teen from a progressive family rebelling by hooking up with conservatives is an unusual one, and Cox's wit carries it a long way.

Ultimately though, not much more than a curio unless you're invested in the author's personal life or have an emotional attachment to semi-pro golf.

[Simon Jones · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm not sure why Tom Cox felt the need to write this book. Okay, he can string entertaining sentences together, but the subject matter - his time as a mildly obnoxious teenage golf brat - left me totally cold.

[Michael Pittuck · Rating 3 out of 5]

I’d read anything by Tom. I’d not read this type of book written by anyone else but it has all of Tom’s ease and charm so was enjoyable.

[Jim · Rating 1 out of 5]

I'm sorry, but this was totally minging. I felt really let down yet again by the dust-jacket blurbs stating how hilarious this account of growing up through adolescence as a golf nut would be. I should know by now never to trust rave reviews written by journalists about a novel by another journalist. Funny? A golf ball in the nuts would inspire bigger laughs. My jaw sagged in disbelief when we were led toward the pinnacle of this boy's wild and wacky English caddyshack high jinks, when they stuck a dead mouse in the school swots' golf shoe. It was at this point that I realised the wittiest thing I was going to read in the whole book was the title. I should have stopped after reading that.