Emotional support key for success

The quality of a golfer's game could depend on how things are at home, it was claimed yesterday. Sports psychologists from the Universities of Exeter in Devon and Wales, Bangor, have revealed the emotional support a golfer receives off the course is directly linked to the quality of his or her performance on it.

Research published this month in leading academic publication Journal of Sports Sciencesreveals the findings of a study involving 117 amateur male golfers.

The level of support the golfers received in their personal lives was measured against the quality of their game. And the research showed the performances of those with higher levels of emotional support were better by up to 24 per cent.

"We often speak of the 'moral support' that sportsmen and women get from their friends and families, which helps their performances," said Dr Tim Rees of the School of Sports and Health Sciences at the University of Exeter. "Perhaps, then, it is not surprising that golfers benefit from good social networks off the course.

"What was surprising to us was the extent to which this affected their performance. The day-to-day quality of their relationships has far more of a bearing on golfers' games than I had anticipated."

The research team assessed the level of emotional support each player received.

They also examined the level of esteem they got from personal relationships as well as measuring the help players got with advice or guidance.

The academics then examined how these benefits affected the technical quality of the players' games.

While the effects of anxiety and stress on sportspeople are well researched, the benefit of social support on performance is a relatively unstudied area.

The research team believes that the findings could be applied to other sports, and aims to explore this through further research.

•World Cup winner Marcel Siem is following the example of Thomas Bjorn by personally supporting an event on the European Challenge Tour. Siem has given his name to the Postbank Challenge presented by Marcel Siem in Mulheim on July 12th-15th. It is part of a 30-event schedule in 22 countries for Europe's "second division".

Like Bjorn, who launched an event in his native Denmark three years ago, Siem plied his trade on the Challenge Tour before progressing to become a European Tour champion.