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PGA Tour leaving Hawaii, as former Tournament of Champions and Sony Open off schedule
TL;DR
The PGA Tour is discontinuing its Hawaiian swing, ending the Sentry and Sony Open events. This decision comes as part of a schedule overhaul set for 2027, influenced by logistical and financial challenges.
Key points
- PGA Tour is ending its Hawaiian swing
- Sentry and Sony Open face uncertain futures
- Sentry was canceled this year due to a water dispute
- Sony Open is in its last year of sponsorship
- Logistical and financial challenges impact Hawaiian events
The PGA Tour is ending its season-opening Hawaiian swing. Doug Ferguson of the Associated Press was the first to report the story.
As Golf Digest reported in January, the tour's two Hawaiian stopsāThe Sentry and the Sony Openāface uncertain futures as the PGA Tour looks to overhaul its schedule beginning in 2027. The Sentry (formerly the Tournament of Champions) has called Hawaii home since 1999, its identity built on rigid exclusivity: only the previous season's winners need apply. That changed after the pandemic-shortened 2020 campaign, when eligibility expanded to all Tour Championship qualifiers, a stopgap that hardened into policy by 2023. The following year brought more changeāa corporate rechristening to "The Sentry," elevation to signature status, and a qualifying threshold stretched to the top 50 in the FedEx Cup. The Sony Open lacks that star density but has anchored the tour's schedule since the 1960s and remains the season's first full-field event.
This yearās Sentry was not played, the fallout from a water dispute amid severe drought forcing the tour in October to cancel the event rather than play at a browned-out Plantation Course at Kapalua. Meanwhile, Sony was in the last year of its sponsorship for the Hawaiian Open. Both tournaments faced structural problems rooted in geography. Their distance from the mainland creates cascading complicationsālogistical, operational, financial. Even with leaner infrastructure than their continental counterparts, multiple sources with knowledge of tour productions rank the Hawaiian stops among the costliest on the calendar. Maui's sparse population and Kapalua's mountainous terrain yield thin galleries and one of the tour's smallest corporate footprints. Waialae draws respectable crowds from Honolulu's denser base but has never become a revenue engine.
There is a chance the Hawaiian Open moves to the PGA Tour Champions. However, the tour is officially out at Kapalua.
āWe are grateful to the Plantation Course at Kapalua, Kapalua Resort, Maui County and the state of Hawaii for their longtime support of our season-opening PGA Tour event,ā the tour said in a statement, āas well as the fans, partners and volunteers across Maui who have supported the event throughout the years.ā
Sentry remains committed to a PGA Tour event through the mid-2030s. Sources have indicated to Golf Digest the company could sponsor the tourās event at Torrey Pines, as Farmers Insurance is also in its last year of tournament sponsorship.
For now, the first event on the PGA Tourās 2027 schedule is the AmEx, slated to begin in late January. The tour is expected to release its full schedule in the upcoming weeks.
Q&A
Why is the PGA Tour ending its Hawaiian swing?
The PGA Tour is ending its Hawaiian swing due to logistical, operational, and financial challenges, as well as a schedule overhaul planned for 2027.
What happened to the Sentry and Sony Open tournaments?
Both the Sentry and Sony Open face uncertain futures, with the Sentry already canceled this year due to a water dispute and the Sony Open in its last year of sponsorship.
Could the Hawaiian Open move to the PGA Tour Champions?
There is a possibility that the Hawaiian Open could transition to the PGA Tour Champions, but the PGA Tour has officially ended its involvement at Kapalua.
