Landscape patterns and diurnal thermal effects of golf courses in urban and suburban settings

Urban heat mitigation increasingly relies on green infrastructure, yet the role of golf courses as large-scale managed spaces remains underexplored. Unlike urban parks or forests, golf courses combine short-grass surfaces, fragmented woodland patches, and impervious facilities, producing distinct thermal behaviors across time and contexts. This study examines the diurnal land surface temperature (LST) responses of 179 golf courses in the Seoul Metropolitan Area, South Korea, using ECOSTRESS thermal imagery, detailed land-cover data, and a three-stage least squares simultaneous equation modeling (3SLS-SEM) framework. By integrating SEM with elasticity analysis, we quantify how internal landscape composition and configuration, together with surrounding land use, jointly influence thermal outcomes. The results show that golf courses may act as either cold or heat islands, influenced jointly by diurnal timing and their surrounding landscape context; courses embedded in dense urban fabrics tend to exhibit stronger cooling effects, whereas those in suburban or vegetated settings often show weaker cooling and thus relatively higher LST. Cooling performance is shaped primarily by spatial configuration: fragmented short-grass patches with high edge density and contiguous woodland clusters enhance cooling, while rough grass and impervious surfaces increase surface temperatures. These internal patterns are further moderated by external land use—impervious urban matrices amplify cooling contrasts, whereas forested, wetland-dominated, and water-body surroundings diminish them. These findings challenge the notion that golf courses have uniform climate impacts. The identified landscape metrics offer transferable indicators for improving cooling in large green spaces and support climate-sensitive design of multifunctional landscapes such as parks and plazas.