Mark Rolfing was at home Sunday at Kapalua, the NFL games on in the background, and the PGA Tour was nowhere to be found on Maui.
“It’s been a strange week. It feels really weird,” said Rolfing, who has spent years both in front of the camera and behind the scenes as an ambassador for golf in the islands.
And now, as the Sony Open in Hawaii begins Thursday at Waialae Country Club, there is the very real possibility that it will be the final PGA Tour event in Hawaii for the foreseeable future.
There is no guarantee The Sentry will return to Kapalua’s Plantation Course in the future following its 2026 cancellation, and with Sony’s longtime sponsorship of a tour event that began in 1965 ending at the conclusion of this week’s tournament, the tour could be saying aloha to its traditional January starting point.
Throw in the discussion about a reimagined tour schedule with a potentially later starting date, and multiple factors are conspiring to raise questions about the tour’s future in Hawaii.
“I think the tour will make a mistake if they don’t have any Hawaii events whatsoever. I don’t feel like we’re there yet but I just don’t feel like we’re going to have two events in January,” Rolfing said.
Brian Rolapp, the tour’s new CEO, has made no secret of his intention to restructure the tour schedule, likely reducing the number of tournaments with the goal of creating more across-the-board competition among the top players. He’s also suggested starting later, rather than early January, could benefit the tour.
Rolfing, a longtime Kapalua resident, had dinner last week with Ben Crenshaw, who co-designed the Plantation Course with Bill Coore, while the tour waited a week to start its 2026 season. The Sentry event was cancelled in September due to a severe drought, water conservation rules in the area and a legal battle related to the water supply.
As it turned out, the water issue was resolved but not in time for the tour to commit to the massive transportation effort to get the buildout done at Kapalua.
“The course is packed and Crenshaw told me it’s in the best shape he’s ever seen it,” Rolfing said.
It was a blow to the local economy which, in the past five years, has dealt with the pandemic, the devastating Maui wildfires and the worst drought in decades.
The question is whether one lost week is a prelude to something bigger.
Brian Rolapp, the tour’s new CEO, has made no secret of his intention to restructure the tour schedule, likely reducing the number of tournaments with the goal of creating more across-the-board competition among the top players. He’s also suggested starting later, rather than early January, could benefit the tour.
Part of the issue is the massive impact of the NFL playoffs, which dwarf other sporting events this time of year. The league’s viewing numbers continue to grow and, as the first weekend of the playoffs demonstrated recently, the NFL is an unmatched powerhouse and that is not going to change.
Add in the creation of TGL, which provides night-time golf action with tour stars in January and February, not so much filling a void but adding another option for golf fans, and it’s another challenge for Hawaii in January.
One more critical piece is the DP World Tour, which starts in the Middle East and typically draws Rory McIlroy, Tommy Fleetwood, Shane Lowry and others. Considering Scottie Scheffler does not usually play in Hawaii and there is a shortage of star power on the tour in January.
The cost of staging an event in Hawaii has increased by approximately 50 percent in the past two years, said Rolfing, who works directly with sponsors and the events themselves.
“I don’t know how to get things back on track financially as expensive as it is,” Rolfing said.
“The question is if there is any scenario … for a tournament in Hawaii to compete and the answer is probably no.”
Without some form of subsidies, it’s unlikely the tour could continue in Hawaii. Rolfing cited his longtime involvement with the popular Maui Invitational college basketball tournament, one of the centerpieces of the sport’s early-season schedule.
“Now the competition is a 32-team Las Vegas tournament where every team gets $1 million apiece starting next year. They gave each team $1 million this year [there were 18 teams this season] and we lost three of our teams within months of the tournament. It’s going to be a big tussle over finances,” Rolfing said.
Rolfing hasn’t given up hope of finding a solution that keeps at least one Hawaii event on the PGA Tour schedule.
With questions about what will happen at Torrey Pines with Farmers Insurance bowing out as title sponsor after this year, Rolfing could see slotting The Sentry at Kapalua into that spot in the schedule to kick off the season – playing Tuesday through Friday, with the tournament airing in prime time on the mainland – with Phoenix following in its traditional Super Bowl week spot and ending on Saturday, both events avoiding the NFL shadow.
In the meantime, the Sony Open introduces the 2026 PGA Tour season this week. What happens one year from now in Hawaii remains unclear.
“I’m not giving up yet,” Rolfing said.
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