For months, the Town of North Hempstead has been facing pushback from a group of regular patrons of the town’s public golf course, Harbor Links, over the lack of tee times after Labor Day.
The town and Harbor Links’ new manager, Kelley Brooke, have denied that there was any issue requiring attention.
Charlene Prounis, an avid golfer at Harbor Links, has attended several recent town board meetings and met with town officials to voice her concerns.
Prounis said the “excessive” number of outings held since the town signed a 20-year contract with Brooke Holdings LLC amounted to a violation of the public trust doctrine.
“She is having as many outings as she sees fit,” Prounis said of Brooke.
The contract between Brooke Holdings LLC and the Town of North Hempstead does not specify how many outings may be held after Labor Day.
“The town is not doing their job right now to set standards,” Prounis said.“This failure of the town allows the golf operator to have exclusive control of the park three or four days a week.”
Umberto Mignardi, the public information officer for North Hempstead Town Supervisor Jennifer DeSena’s office, submitted a statement saying “North Hempstead has just one municipal golf course, and it belongs to the entire community — not just a small circle of regulars.”
“Ms. Brooke has done an outstanding job in making sure this public course serves everyone. The people at these outings are neighbors — police officers, volunteer firefighters, nonprofit and hospital workers, and they’re all giving back. They have every right to support local organizations, and they have every right to do so on their public course.”
Brooke also said the complaints were unwarranted.
“We had 46,000 rounds of golf [in 2025], and a handful of people are making complaints,” she said. “It’s more of a nuisance than anything.”
Brooke said “rounds of golf drop off considerably” after Labor Day, and she increases the number of outings to fill tee times that would otherwise go unused.
“These outings are not huge moneymakers,” Brooke said. “We’re just filling time that wouldn’t be filled in otherwise…we had 974 rounds and 357 tee times went unused.”
The vast majority of the outings were for different community organizations and non-profits, she said. Three out of the 20 outings Harbor Links held after Labor Day were for private companies.
Prounis disputed the number of outings held since Labor Day.
She said Brooke did not include events like Brooke’s wedding and a Ryder Cup event, which were held at the golf course.
“The fact that the course was not available to the public is what I’m looking at,” Prounis said.
Another regular golfer at Harbor Links, Steven Greif, said the problem getting tee times is a recent one.
“More than 10 times during the months of September and October…it simply said, ‘no tee times available,’” he said.
“On those days, I would drive over to the golf course, mainly to use the driving course, but also to look around, and they would have big banners in front of the clubhouse for whatever the organization was.”
Greif and Prounis said they met with town attorneys Rich Nicolello and Robert Bogle to discuss setting standards for the golf course, but the town never got back to them after the meeting.
Mignardi and Brooke said they did not plan to decrease the number of outings in 2026, but Prounis and Greif said they will continue to put pressure on the town.
