The purpose of this study was to investigate the relationship among parental social support perceived by junior golf players, intrinsic motivation and stress. According to previous research, under competitive environment, positive interaction with significant other such as parents positively affects performance of junior golfers in their tournaments.
For this study, 274 junior golfers who were enrolled in the Korea Junior Golf Association (KJGA) became the respondents. The participants were recruited using purposive convenience sampling. The participants were asked to complete a questionnaire which was used to assess social support (Kim, 1995; Kim, 2006), intrinsic motivation(Eom & Kim, 2003), and stress(Hwang et al., 2013) . The responses were coded and analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 21.0 and AMOS 21.0. Descriptive statistics, confirmatory analysis, reliability analysis, correlation analysis, multiple regression analysis were performed according to the purpose of current study with the alpha level of .05.
First, a significant correlation was found among parents social support, intrinsic motivation, and stress of junior golfers. Second, parents social support affected intrinsic motivation of adolescent golfers. Third, intrinsic motivation of junior golfers had an impact on stress level of junior players. Forth, parents social support had an influence on stress levels of junior golfers.
All in all, the findings suggest that parents social support of junior golfers plays a crucial role in performance of junior golfers providing diverse feedbacks which enhance pleasure of sports.