Kelley Brooke doesn’t remember choosing golf.
Growing up in Iowa, the game was simply part of her household. Her mother was both the city and club champion. Her father played to a single-digit handicap. Her grandparents played. When Brooke was born, her parents placed a putter in her crib.
“I don’t think I had much of a choice,” Brooke said.
Golf became her constant as she grew up, even as she played other sports. She competed in soccer, swam competitively and played tennis. But golf stood apart, drawing her in with its independence and honesty.
“It’s an objective game,” she said. “Your score is your score. There’s no judging and no team behind you.”
By the time she was 10 or 11, Brooke was traveling nationally on the junior circuit. The sport also became a family anchor, with tournaments doubling as quality time.
“It was something we all did together,” she said. “Our lives revolved around it.”
That foundation followed Brooke east in the early 1990s, when she moved to New York and began giving golf lessons at driving ranges in New Jersey and Staten Island. She charged $25 a lesson and quickly discovered she had a natural ability to teach.
The response was immediate.
“I was working from 9 in the morning until 9 at night,” Brooke said. “I had a three- to four-week waiting list.”
The workload was intense for someone in her early 20s, but it forged a work ethic that still defines her career.
“I wasn’t easing into it,” she said. “I was thrown into it.”
While teaching on Staten Island, Brooke’s profile grew through coverage from longtime Staten Island Advance golf writer Tom Flanagan, whom she credits with helping elevate her career.
She soon began writing instructional articles herself, becoming a regular contributor to Junior Golf Magazine and later publishing work in Golf Digest, Golf.com and New York Golfing Magazine.
Before golf instruction became common on television, Brooke took matters into her own hands.
She pitched, and ultimately created, her own instructional golf show on local cable in Staten Island and Brooklyn, selling advertising, writing scripts and producing episodes independently.
“That’s when I really learned the power of the press,” she said.
By 1993, Brooke realized she didn’t want to spend her entire life standing on a driving range tee line. She wrote a goal on an index card: within 10 years, she would own her own golf facility.
She mapped out the steps to get there — building junior programs, expanding women’s golf and launching nonprofit initiatives that broadened access to the game.
In 2003, that plan paid off when she won the bid to operate Brooklyn Golf Center and Dyker Beach Golf Course, beating proposals tied to some of the sport’s biggest names.
“No one was going to outwork me,” she said.
From there, Brooke’s career expanded rapidly. She has spent four decades in the golf industry as a player, instructor, business owner and media presence, delivering more than 50,000 lessons and operating multiple golf centers and courses, including Bethpage Black and Harbor Links. Brooke is the president and chief executive officer of Brooke Management Group, which oversees her growing portfolio of golf facilities and operations across Long Island and New York City. In 2018, she was named LPGA Professional of the Year.
At Bethpage Black, one of the most iconic public courses in the world, Brooke operates the pro shop, driving range, cart operations and instructional programs. At Harbor Links, her role is even more expansive.
“At Harbor Links, I have literally everything,” she said. “I’m growing the grass. I’m hosting weddings.”
The North Shore facility features 27 holes, a newly renovated driving range and a beer garden added under Brooke’s leadership. Her reach across Long Island continues through pro shop operations at Merrick and Lido, as well as Montauk Downs in Suffolk County, with additional projects in development.
“What’s special is touching so many golfers every single day,” Brooke said. “All across Long Island.”
Her influence extends far beyond traditional golf audiences. Over the past 30 years, Brooke has created dozens of instructional programs in New York City, including the largest junior golf program for children with disabilities in the world and a Police Athletic League initiative that introduced the sport to more than 4,000 economically disadvantaged children annually.
“Golf isn’t an elitist sport anymore,” Brooke said. “And that’s a good thing.”
Brooke has also become a visible voice in the sport, serving as a lead instructor for NBC and the Golf Channel, writing the book “7 Days to Golf,” hosting a regional radio show, appearing in national commercials and continuing to compete on the Legends of the LPGA Tour.
Now based in Rockaway, Queens, Brooke oversees an operation with more than 250 employees and multiple venues across Long Island. Expansion, she says, keeps her motivated.
“I just don’t think that letting the grass grow under my feet is something I can do,” she said. “I think that I get bored very, very easily. So expanding right now is very exciting to me.”
As she looks toward the future, Brooke hopes her career serves as proof of what’s possible.
“At the end of my career, I hope I’ve served as a role model for other women in the golf industry,” said Brooke. “I want them to see that careers once reserved for men are now within reach, and that owning facilities or golf-related businesses is possible if you’re willing to work harder and smarter than everyone else.”
For Brooke, success is no longer measured by money or trophies, but by impact.
“I want people to feel like public golf can be special,” she said. “And at the end of the day, I want to know I made a difference.”
