US golf’s elite PGA Tour has announced it is dropping its season-opening Hawaiian swing as it continues to overhaul its calendar for the 2027 season.
Next season will be the first time in 63 years that the PGA Tour will not host events in Hawaii, after tour organizers confirmed the island’s two stops, The Sentry at the Plantation Course on Maui and the Sony Open at Waialae Country Club in Honolulu, had been dropped from its calendar.
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In a statement, the tour said: “We 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, as well as the fans, partners and volunteers across Maui who have supported the event throughout the years.”
The Sentry, previously known as the Tournament of Champions, has featured on the PGA Tour calendar since 1953, serving as the season-opening event from 1986 to 2013, a tradition that resumed in 2024 when the tour returned to a calendar-year schedule.
Eligibility for participation was limited to previous winners before the policy was changed to include all Tour Championship qualifiers after the pandemic-shortened 2020 season.
The tournament was then upgraded to a signature event and renamed The Sentry for the 2024 and 2025 seasons, with eligibility stretched to include the top 50 in the FedEx Cup.
Sentry Insurance’s title sponsorship deal for the event is due to run through 2035, with the designation held since 2018. From 2018 to 2023, the tournament was named the Sentry Tournament of Champions.
Given its contract has been cut short, Sentry could carry over its title sponsorship to another tournament, such as the tour’s event at Torrey Pines, which just completed the last year of its sponsorship deal with Farmers Insurance.
Meanwhile, the Sony Open, formerly known as the Hawaiian Open, has been staged since 1965 and is in its last year of sponsorship with the Japanese conglomerate.
The tour said “conversations are ongoing” over the Sony Open potentially moving to the PGA Tour Champions senior circuit, joining the existing Mitsubishi Electric Championship at Hualalai to create a two-tournament presence in Hawaii.
It added that it has been “in communication with Sentry Insurance and Sony throughout its decision-making process.”
Reports that Hawaii’s two stops were at risk of being cut surfaced when the tour was forced to cancel The Sentry, scheduled for January 8 to 11, last October, due to water restrictions on the drought-stricken island.
After failing to find an alternative venue, the PGA Tour’s 2026 season kicked off with the Sony Open from January 15 to 18.
Currently, the first event on the PGA Tour’s 2027 calendar is the AmEx in late January, but the tour is expected to announce its full schedule for next year in the coming weeks.
The move comes two months after the PGA Tour’s chief, Brian Rolapp, announced the property would expand the number of its top-line signature events across the season as part of several sweeping changes for the tour’s calendar.
Speaking in March, Rolapp discussed six “themes” that are being considered by the tour’s Future Competition Committee, which are likely to come into effect over the coming years, including playing in larger US markets.
Currently, only four of the US’s 10 largest media markets feature in the tour, and now the property is evaluating the likes of New York, Chicago, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Washington DC, and Boston for potential future events.
Another potential major overhaul being considered is doubling the eight signature events that are featured annually.
The 16 events would form part of a reformatted elite PGA Tour schedule, running from January to September, comprised of between 21 and 26 events aimed at ensuring the tour’s top players compete against each other more often, as opposed to the more scattered approach currently in place.
This elite track, which would run in concert with a secondary track of smaller events, would also include the four majors as well as other prominent events such as the Players Championship (long considered a pseudo fifth major), and could feature smaller competitor fields, consolidating action among the elite players on the tour.
Promotion and relegation between the two tour tracks are a possibility, with a “merit-based” system set to be introduced.
Finally, Rolapp said that to increase jeopardy in the season-ending stages, match play, where players compete hole by hole against an opponent, could be introduced across the FedEx Cup playoffs or the Tour Championship finale.
Rolapp added that some of the changes will take place sooner than others, with several wider-ranging moves not likely before the 2028 PGA Tour campaign.
