A Comparative Study of Leisure Constraints in Outdoor Leisure Activities Depending on Recognition of the Level of Particulate Matter (PM₁₀): Focused on Golf Participants in the Republic of Korea

Particulate matter, one of the most recent social problems in Korea, not only poses a threat to people’s health, but is also emerging as a constraint to discourage outdoor leisure activities. Golf, a leisure sport played outdoors for hours, is not free from such a threat, and now is time to analyze golfers’ recognition of particulate matter. To examine whether particulate matter, among other constraints for golfers, had a significant effect as well as how golfers recognized particulate matter, we used 324 collected questionnaires in this study. After exploratory factor analysis and reliability analysis through SPSS 23.0, we divided questionnaire participants into recognition and non-recognition groups based on whether they checked and recognized atmospheric conditions, including particulate matter, before playing golf, and used multivariate analysis of variance (MANOVA) to compare and analyze leisure constraints. Respondents in the recognition group who recognized particulate matter in advance experienced participation constraints in weather and health factors, while those in the non-recognition group experienced participation constraints in skill and confidence factors. In other words, respondents participated in outdoor leisure activities even though they recognized the level of hazardous particulate matter in the air beforehand, and particulate matter worked as a participation constraint for them; this finding confirmed that it will be necessary in the future to take preventative action more actively against the danger of particulate matter.