The professional golfers’ association revealed on Wednesday that its yearly kickoff competition, The Sentry, will not occur in 2026 because of continuing arid weather patterns in Maui, Hawaii, where the Plantation Course at Kapalua resides. Instead, the Sony Open at Waialae Country Club in Honolulu will act as the association’s initial event of the 2026 season from January 15th to 18th.
“Considering that it initially surfaced as a concern that the professional golfers’ association might be unable to participate at The Plantation Course at Kapalua as a result of the sustained arid environmental circumstances on Maui, we collaborated intimately alongside our partners at Sentry to examine possibilities for contesting The Sentry in 2026,” professional golfers’ association head competitions administrator Tyler Dennis communicated via a statement. “Even though it is regrettable to reach this outcome, we value the collaboration and commitment from Sentry Insurance, a remarkable partner of ours.”
The association communicated in September that the competition was not scheduled to be conducted at the Plantation Course and investigated other choices to orchestrate the competition. Those alternatives encompassed other locations in the Aloha State and in other places, but it was eventually regarded as unfeasible given the structure and vendor support required to assemble a competition.
The Sentry existed as the association’s season commencement event spanning from 1986 to 2013 and subsequent to 2024 when the circuit returned to a calendar-year configuration.
Those suitable for The Sentry feature the top 50 in the 2025 FedEx Cup rankings in conjunction with victors from the prior season. The players who concluded within the top 50 in the FedEx Cup rankings qualified for all the hallmark events in 2026, whereas the victors who contemplated participating in The Sentry — and were solely in the group via that triumph — will now be appended to the group at another hallmark event in the RBC Heritage.
