A Study On The Golfers’ Golf Place Attachment Based On The Involvement Theory

Golfers must play golf within golf courses which is different with the other sports. Generally speaking, one person is very easy to be attached with the surroundings. The feeling is born with the person’s involvement in the place and be deepened during the participation, which will push the one involving in the activities and engender the place attachment. The golf clubs in China have a low profitability level. The paper tried to study the relationships between golfers’involvement and golf course attachment and explored the management strategies for golf clubs.According to the literature review, the paper chose Hedonic Value, Centrality and Symbolic Value to measure Involvement and used Place Dependence and Place Identity as the dimensions of Place Attachment. It proposed a relational model and hypothesizes between involvement and golf course attachment. With the questionnaire survey, this study conducted structural equation model with AMOS software. The study came to some conclusions that:a) Hedonic Value has a significant effect on golf course attachment, Centrality has a lower positive effect, but Symbolic Value has no positive effect on it; b) golfers has stronger golf course identity than their golf course dependence; c) demographic characteristics and golfers’participation behaviors showed different effects on the relationship between golfers’involvement and place attachment.Some management strategies were shown according to the research conclusions. Golf clubs should a) provide golfers with pleasure experience; b) ensure that the golfer members of noble symbol; c) enhance the place depend on the feeling of golfers; d) foster player’s sense of golf course identity and sense of belonging; e) improve the level of player’s involvement and cultivate place attachment on the basis of demographic characteristics and participation behaviors of golfers.