The Sentry at Kapalua gets canceled instead of going to another course. Sony Open to start season

The PGA Tour is canceling its season opener at The Sentry instead of finding a replacement course for water-deprived Kapalua on Maui, the first time a tournament has been canceled since the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

The Sony Open in Honolulu will be the first tournament of 2026 on Jan. 15-18, the latest start to a year since the PGA Tour was formed in 1969.

The tour and Wisconsin-based Sentry Insurance had contemplated other courses to stage the $20 million signature event for PGA Tour winners and those from the top 50 in the FedEx Cup. Instead, they chose not to play it at all.

“I am really proud of what The Sentry has become. I didn’t want ’26 to be any less,” said Stephanie Smith, the chief marketing and brand officer at Sentry who oversees the golf partnership that began in 2018. The sponsorship runs through 2035.

“We didn’t want it be just, ‘Find a place for it in the schedule’, or, ‘Find a course for it that could host it.’ I wanted Sentry to remain the jewel that it is,” Smith said. “I wanted it to be special. When that couldn’t come together, I felt we didn’t have a choice.

“This is not the outcome we wanted, but unfortunately it’s where we are.”

Kapalua had to close its two courses on drought-stricken Maui — the Plantation course has hosted the PGA Tour since 1999 — because of severe water restrictions brought on by a dispute with the company in charge of a century-old water delivery system.

The Sony Open is in its last year of title sponsorship, leaving Hawaii’s place on the PGA Tour schedule in doubt after this year.

The tour announced The Sentry being canceled on the same day Kapalua announced the Plantation course will re-open for play on Nov. 10 and tee times could be reserved starting Thursday at a promotional rate of $399. It said two of the 18 greens were still being restored.

The Sentry has been the first PGA Tour event every year since 1999 except in 2001, when the season began in Australia with a World Golf Championship. Several players in the Kapalua field often headed over to Oahu for the Sony Open.

Seven PGA Tour winners, including Aldrich Potgieter and Min Woo Lee, did not finish among the top 50 in the FedEx Cup. The tour said to make up for missing a spot at Kapalua, they will be added to the field in the RBC Heritage at Hilton Head the week after the Masters.

Tadashi Yanai, the Japanese billionaire who owns Kapalua and who founded the apparel brand Uniqlo, Kapalua homeowners and Hua Momona Farms filed a lawsuit in August against Maui Land & Pineapple, alleging it has not maintained the water delivery system.

MLP has since filed a countersuit and the two sides have exchanged accusations since then.

The Commissioner on Water Resource Management in Hawaii two weeks ago notified MLP of alleged violations with the water delivery system with fines that could total $11 million. MLP has until Nov. 8 to respond.

In the meantime, Kapalua’s two courses went from emerald green to yellow with the water restrictions, leading to the course closing in September for at least two months to try to save them. The tour announced Sept. 16 it would not be able to play The Sentry at Kapalua.

Smith did not say which other courses were under consideration. A year ago, the Genesis Invitational had to move away from Riviera in Los Angeles because of the deadly wildfires in Pacific Palisades. It relocated for the year to Torrey Pines, which still had all its infrastructure in place from hosting a PGA Tour event three weeks earlier.

“After assessing alternate venues in Hawaii and beyond, the tour determined it would not be able to contest The Sentry in 2026 because of logistical challenges — including shipping deadlines, tournament infrastructure and vendor support,” the tour said in a statement.

The Sentry has one of the longest title sponsorship deal with the tour. Still to be determined is whether it will return to Kapalua in 2027, a year in which significant changes are expected from a revamped schedule.

Tiger Woods is leading a “Futures Competition Committee” to shape the tour. That committee is about to meet for the first time.

Asked about The Sentry’s future on Maui in 2027, Smith said, “It’s hard to say at this point.”

“We are committed to playing The Sentry,” she said. “We know from our conversations with the tour that The Sentry will be on the schedule. There’s so many factors in play right now. What’s going on the island? Will the water issue be resolved? Will the course be playable? What about the lawsuits being resolved?

“We’ve had good conversations,” she said. “We’re committed to playing The Sentry again at the level we have in the past.”

The Sony Open becomes the seventh tournament to start the year since the tour began.

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AP golf: https://apnews.com/hub/golf