Kapalua won’t host PGA Tour opener as it deals with drought

The PGA Tour said Tuesday it is leaving Kapalua Resort in Hawai’i for its season opener after determining it cannot be ready to host The Sentry in January due to a drought and water dispute that has left the golf course baked and brown from lack of irrigation.

The PGA Tour had started every year on the Plantation course at Kapalua since 1999 except for 2001, when the season began in Australia and then went to Kapalua on west Maui.

Still to be determined is where — or when — to move The Sentry, a $20 million signature event for all the PGA Tour winners in 2025 and the top 50 in the FedEx Cup. It was scheduled to be held Jan. 8-11.

The decision will not affect the Sony Open on Oahu, which will be played the following week.

Brian Rolapp, the CEO of PGA Tour Enterprises, spoke with Hawai’i Gov. Josh Green while consulting with Wisconsin-based Sentry Insurance, Kapalua Resort and Maui County.

“The PGA Tour has determined the 2026 playing of The Sentry will not be contested at the Plantation Course at Kapalua due to ongoing drought conditions, water conservation requirements, agronomic conditions and logistical challenges,” the tour said in a statement.

Also considered were the logistics of vendors and shipping supplies to stage the tournament on an island in the middle of the Pacific.

Maui has been dealing with drought conditions that have affected 140,000 residents, and water conservation mandates are aimed at prioritizing needs of the island.

“We support the PGA Tour’s decision, given the drought conditions Maui is facing,” Green said in a statement. “Protecting our water and supporting our communities come first. The Sentry has long showcased Maui’s beauty while giving back to local nonprofits.”

Kapalua officials say the tournament has a $50 million economic impact on the area.

Sentry, which has a title sponsorship deal through 2035, signed off on the decision given the circumstances facing west Maui.

“As we’ve said for years, Maui is a Sentry community not unlike our hometown of Stevens Point, Wisconsin, and that remains the case. Our communities are connected. We’ve built meaningful friendships throughout the island, and those relationships are bigger than the tournament,” said Stephanie Smith, the chief marketing and brand officer who oversees Sentry’s involvement at Kapalua.

At the heart of the water dispute are allegations that Maui Land & Pineapple, which operates the century-old system of ditches that provides irrigation water to Kapalua and its residents, has not kept up repairs that has affected water getting down from the mountain.

Tadashi Yanai, the Japanese billionaire who owns Kapalua and who founded the apparel brand Uniqlo, Kapalua homeowners and Hua Momona Farms filed a lawsuit Aug. 18 against MLP alleging it has not maintained the water delivery system.

“That disrepair, not any act of God, or force of nature, or other thing, is why users who need it are currently without water,” the lawsuit says.

MLP said it has made “certain repairs and improvements to the ditch system” as directed by the Commission on Water Resource Management and that all its actions are “consistent with the agreements between MLP and the golf courses.”

Kapalua Resort closed the Plantation on Sept. 2 for two months with hopes of saving the golf course with what little irrigation it was allowed. But there was setback when the Hawai’i Water Commissioner and MLP raised restrictions to ban all irrigation.

Kapalua announced Monday that the Bay course would close indefinitely in an effort to divert what little irrigation it was allowed to be used to save the Plantation.

In recent weeks, both sides have lobbed accusations at the other. MLP said in statement last week that Kapalua used more than 1 million gallons a day over two days, half the capacity of the wells, which led to the tighter restrictions.

TY Management — Yanai’s company — said Kapalua’s irrigation has central control systems and water usage is based on science. A company spokesman said Kapalua has followed every mandate, even when MLP and the Hawai’i Water Service unexpectedly imposed an irrigation ban as the course was preparing to take measures to save it.

Kapalua has been part of the PGA Tour since 1982 when it staged a popular unofficial event in November at the Bay course and then the Plantation after it opened in 1991. It was the first design by Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw.

The PGA Tour Champions has a season opener on the Big Island on Jan. 23-25, while the LPGA typically visits Hawai’i in early October.

The next step is determining where or when to play the tournament, especially with the Sony Open the following week. Before it went to Kapalua in 1999, the tournament had been held for years at La Costa Resort in Carlsbad, California.

The PGA Tour has added Trump Doral near Miami to the 2026 schedule in April. A title sponsor for that tournament has not been announced.