Harbor Links has a new course operator and will soon have a variety of spiffy new amenities to enhance the playing experience.
And among those incoming amenities are robots — yes, robots — that will deliver food and drinks to players as they swing their way around the Port Washington golf course. Kelley Brooke, whose management company Brooke Holdings LLC took over operations at the Town of North Hempstead municipal facility earlier this year, says Harbor Links will be the first golf course in the world boasting robot food service. "On the course, players will have an app on their phone and be able to order food and drinks," Brooke says. "The kitchen packs the robot and sends it out to the group."
That focus on technology and modernization is the theme of the Brooke-led metamorphosis at Harbor Links, which opens for the 2025 season on Friday, March 14. The course's 37-stall driving range will soon be fully covered and outfitted with training tech, TVs and lounge seating, and hours will be extended during the season as late as 11:00 p.m. (The robots will make deliveries to the range too.)
"Millennials are entering the game at very high numbers, so we're trying to computerize and tech out the entire venue," Brooke says. "It will attract that newer, younger crowd."
One development that takes a look back into the past rather than ahead at the future is the course's newly released logo. A sand miner, one hand on hip and the other grasping a golf club, honors the workers who were ever-present near Hempstead Harbor in the late 1800s and early 1900s when the region was mined to build the infrastructure of New York City. Harbor Links was developed inside one of the industrial sand quarries in 1998.
Brooke, the 2018 LPGA Professional of the Year and longtime contributor to The Golf Channel, adds Harbor Links to a management portfolio that includes Bethpage, Montauk Downs, Lido and Merrick. Less than a year after signing a 10-year contract with the Town of Hempstead to operate and rebrand the Lido and Merrick courses, Brooke finalized a similar agreement with North Hempstead that took effect in January. And in line with Merrick's rebrand under Brooke into The Nine at Merrick, Harbor Links' nine-hole Executive Course will now be known as The Lower course. Future upgrades at the Harbor Links nine include a beer garden and an outdoor wood-burning pizza oven. Near the driving range, a performance center with TPI trainers, simulators and a full gym is planned for this fall.
Though there hasn't been much golf played anywhere on Long Island this offseason due to weather, Harbor Links has been buzzing with activity since the new group moved in during the first week of 2025. Gone are the old green carpets that lined the pro shop and lobby, replaced now by light, modern hardwood flooring. Installation of new stone flooring is currently underway on the ballroom's outdoor patio. Paint, lighting and furniture updates give the facility a noticeably fresh look.
On the course, the most significant alteration is a renovated tee box on #7, which now stretches 50 yards long. Bunker work will likely be done next offseason.
Similar driving-range upgrades are underway at Montauk Downs and planned for Bethpage, Brooke says. The range nets at Bethpage are scheduled to be raised in the fall.
For more on Harbor Links, check out the course flyover.
[Bar room photos courtesy of Kelley Brooke.]
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