Next week’s season-opening Sony Open in Hawaii could mark the end of the PGA Tour’s Hawaiian swing with the tour evaluating a potential overhaul to its traditional event calendar.
The Sony Open at Waialae on Oahu is serving as the 2026 season opener after The Sentry was canceled due to the Plantation Course at Kapalua not being ready to host a tour event following a water rights dispute amid drought conditions.
The Sony is one of five regular tour stops whose title sponsorship contracts expire this year. Sentry is signed through 2035, but in confirming the cancellation of this year’s event on Maui, the company said in an October statement that it remains committed to “our long-term relationship with the tour” without specifically mentioning Kapalua, Maui or Hawaii.
According to a report by Golf Digest, the two Hawaiian events are at risk of being eliminated as the tour considers a massive schedule overhaul for as soon as the 2027 season.
New CEO Brian Rolapp and the tour’s private-equity partner Strategic Sports Group are evaluating changes that would include pushing the start of the season to after the Super Bowl as well as truncating the elite event schedule.
According to the report, ideas under consideration could include shifting second-level events into a subsidiary tier, folding them into an expanded Korn Ferry Tour schedule or some hybrid of the two. That would include the FedEx Fall slate of tournaments, while Kapalua and Waialae could be dropped from the schedule entirely.
A primary issue for the Hawaiian tournaments is the distance and logistical challenge that makes them among the most expensive stops on tour to produce, which is compounded by the traditionally smaller attendance figures both events draw.
Formerly known as the Tournament of Champions, The Sentry has been on the tour’s schedule since 1999. In 2020, the event expanded to include all players who qualified for the Tour Championship and became one of the signature events with elevated purses.
The Sony Open has been on the tour schedule since the 1960s and traditionally serves as the first full-field event of the year.
But tradition is being put to the test with the tour taking on private equity and the calendar being reimagined.
Rolapp and Future Competition Committee chair Tiger Woods reportedly met with the 20 players who competed at last month’s Hero World Challenge in the Bahamas to present the vision for an overhauled schedule.
The three governing principles guiding the committee’s work — at Rolapp’s suggestion — have been parity, scarcity and simplicity.
Per reports, the pitch brought to the players in the meeting included a reduced schedule of 20-25 events focused on the biggest markets and the best courses. An English Premier League-esque relegation system for PGA Tour competition also was reportedly presented.
“We’re trying to figure out what is the best schedule possible so we can create the best fields and have the most viewership and also the most fan involvement and what does that look like,” Woods said in the Bahamas.
–Field Level Media
