PGA Tour : The Sentry January 9-12 : cancelled
When preparing my annual coverage of the PGA Tour, which has been on holiday since the Tour Championship, August 21-24, I was reminded of a Press release back in October that due to the drought on Maui and a water dispute browning out the course, the annual Sentry on the famous Plantation GC on Kapalua had been cancelled.
You may remember it was a restricted field reward originally, for winners on the previous year's PGA Tour. Players would often bring their families for a fortnight's working man's holiday in the islands with some lovely prize money thrown in.
Last year it was selected as a signature event with the top 50 now invited as well, and what seemed to me to be an obscene $20,000,000 for what was really just a nice warm up event in paradise.
So now the season will begin next week at the Sony Open with Canada's Nick Taylor defending his title.
Here's where the waters of the blue Pacific's gets a bit murky.
This is the last year of Sony's sponsorship. Apparently staging the traditional two Hawaiian events are the most expensive dates on Tour, citing their remote location, and sparse resort crowds on Kapalua, and despite the Sony's proximity to Honolulu it has never been considered a revenue maker either.
The Tour's big draw Scottie Scheffler won't begin his season until the American Express January 22 -25 at La Quinta.
New CEO, Brian Rolapp and his Strategic Sports Group are in discussion to restructure the Tour schedule, it is not my intention to delve into all of the proposals, however it is apparent that eliminating the two Hawaiian events is a possibility.
The entire field for this year's Sony Open has not yet been published but there are a record seven Canadians with 2026 cards.
Taylor, along with Corey Conners, Taylor Pendrith, Mac Hughes are joined by Sudarshan Yellamaraju, Adam Svensson and AJ Ewart are all fully qualified.
Adam Hadwin and Ben Silverman have lost their cards but will receive some invites as past champions or performance in the "reshuffle"categories
Bryan Angus
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