A happy home life is the key to a successful golf swing, British researchers have said.
Sports psychologists claim they have proved that the emotional support a golfer receives off the course is directly linked to the quality of his or her performance on it.
The researchers, from the universities of Exeter and Bangor, studied 117 amateur male golfers.
They found golfers with higher levels of emotional support were better by up to 24 per cent.
The study will be published in the January issue of the Journal of Sports Sciences.
Dr Tim Rees, of the University of Exeter, said: "We often speak of the 'moral support' that sportsmen and women get from their friends and families, which helps their performances.
"Perhaps, then, it's 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 researchers 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 team then examined how these benefits affected the technical quality of the players' games.
The academics believe that the findings could be applied to other sports, and aim to explore this through further research.
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