Book description
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.
Tom Cox's writing has appeared in the Daily Telegraph, Sunday Times,
Observer, Mail on Sunday, Jack magazine, The Times and the Guardian, for
which paper he was Pop Critic between 1999 and 2000. He is the author of
two books: Nice Jumper, which was shortlisted for the 2002 National
Sporting Club Best Newcomer Award, and Educating Peter. He was born in
1975 and lives with his wife in Norfolk.
