With record field, The Sentry golf tournament on Maui still on solid footing despite dueling tours

While men’s professional golf continues on a fragmented path between two dueling mega-money tours, The Sentry tournament at the Kapalua Plantation Course on Maui remains a beacon for most, but not all of the best players.

For the 27th consecutive year, The Sentry (formerly known as the Tournament of Champions) will start the calendar year for the PGA Tour, with its four rounds running Thursday through next Sunday.

And this year, like always, it will have a stellar field, with the announcement Friday of a record 60 golfers. They had to qualify for a spot by either winning a PGA Tour tournament in 2024 or finishing in the top 50 on the FedExCup playoff standings through the August playoffs.

“It been a tremendous privilege for the PGA Tour, through everything that’s happened over the years … that we’ve been able to play this event every single year,” said Max Novena, executive director of The Sentry.

While standing near the Plantation Course’s 10th hole on Thursday, Novena added: “I think we’ve been able to demonstrate our commitment, our dedication to the island and to the people. And, we’re very proud of that fact.”

Mark Rolfing, a 76-year-old Kapalua resident and 40-year golf television analyst for NBC and The Golf Channel, said Friday the state of men’s professional golf is not great because of the rival factions that rule the game: the PGA Tour, which began in 1968, and the 4-year-old offshoot LIV Golf tour, which is backed by the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia.

“Right now, I think it’s total chaos,” Rolfing said from the Plantation House restaurant near the first tee and 18th green. “Sort of a disaster because it’s really been bad for the fans in what we’ve been seeing — that is the best players in the world are not playing together that often.”

Four players who have won The Sentry tournament in the past 12 years — Patrick Reed (2015), Dustin Johnson (2013, 2018), Cameron Smith (2022) and Jon Rahm (2023) — have left the PGA Tour to play for LIV Golf, and thus are currently not allowed to play here. 

LIV Golf events are shown on the relatively small television network The CW and financed by the Public Investment Fund, which invests on behalf of the Saudi government and has an estimated $930 billion in assets. 

Eleven months ago, the PGA Tour announced a $3 billion investment deal with Strategic Sports Group, a consortium of North American investors and sports franchise owners.

Earlier this month, Bloomberg reported that the Public Investment Fund is nearing a deal to acquire a 6% stake in PGA Tour Enterprises, the arm of the tour that was created in the deal with Strategic Sports Group. Even with reports of the deal, Rolfing is concerned about just how the game will get the best players back together after several big names left the PGA Tour for large deals, including more than $300 million for Rahm.

“We’ve got some really, really good players that are on a completely different tour … that aren’t even allowed to play on the PGA Tour, that doesn’t have any form of television component to it,” said Rolfing, who chaired the tournament in 2011. “And if you look at the TV ratings for professional golf, they’re down, down, down.

“The fans are upset and so am I. … And I’m just disgusted with all the talk about money and I don’t think it’s good for the game. We’re driving away the fans right now. Somehow, that’s got to stop.”

The Sentry has survived and thrived on Maui through all of the chaos. In 1999, the first Sentry tournament played at Kapalua, David Duval won $468,000 of the $2.4 million purse for his victory over the 31-player field. Last year, The Sentry champion Chris Kirk won $3.6 million from the $20 million purse split among 59 players.

“The Sentry tournament is one that is special just to get to go to in general,” Kirk said via phone in late November. “Obviously you’ve done something really great just to be a part of that field, but to come back to the tournament as the defending champion, I’m sure will be a little bit extra sweet.”

This year’s 60-player field is the largest for the event, which dates to 1953. It features four FedExCup Champions, 31 PGA Tour tournament winners, including 15 first-time winners, and 29 players who qualified via finishing inside the top 50 in the 2024 FedExCup standings.

There were 64 players eligible for the event, but Rory McIlroy, Tommy Fleetwood and Shane Lowry decided not to play this week and world No. 1 Scottie Scheffler, who won seven PGA Tour titles in 2024, announced Friday that he underwent recent surgery to remove glass fragments from his right palm and is unable to compete.

Kirk said his victory last year at Kapalua, a 7,596-yard, par-73 course, carries a special place in his heart simply because of the remarkable resiliency he saw from the West Maui community following the catastrophic wildfire that destroyed most of Lahaina and led to the deaths of at least 102 people.

“It was amazing just seeing a community come together like that,” Kirk said. “Obviously tragedies like that are horrible with the loss of life and property and everything. It was just awful to see all that, but really amazing and encouraging to see, kind of give you some proof that humanity, that we really do care for each other.”

Novena expects more than 15,000 spectators to attend the event this week, about 4,000 per day. Last year, the wildfire led to about a 40% dip in tickets sold.

Title sponsor Sentry Insurance came on board in 2018 and is under contract to sponsor the event through 2035, the longest title sponsorship agreement currently on the PGA Tour. The event was in danger of leaving Maui because of lack of a title sponsor until Sentry Insurance stepped in following the 2017 tournament.

Since the event moved to Maui in 1999, The Sentry has generated more than $9 million for local community charities and Sentry Insurance has donated more than $2 million to fire relief since August 2023.

On Aug. 20, the Sentry Insurance Foundation announced a $150,000 donation to the Pu’u Kukui Watershed Preserve to support the organization’s work as the primary water source for West Maui. The State of Hawai’i has recognized The Sentry as a “Green Event” for its sustainable practices implemented since 2021.

There will be 16 hours of live coverage of the tournament on The Golf Channel and NBC, while PGA Tour Live on ESPN+ will be streamed worldwide. International media includes 42 partners to more than 200 countries and territories and more than 5,000 hours of live coverage in 28 languages.

In 2022, the estimated economic impact by the tournament representatives was $48 million for Maui and the figure for this year’s tournament is likely to be higher, according to representatives with The Sentry. 

Ticket buyers are coming from more than 30 states and seven countries, volunteers are traveling from 35 states and three Canadian Provinces (Alberta, British Columbia and Ontario) and the event will directly contract more than 3,000 room nights for players, families, caddies, staff, partners and vendors, a figure that does not include out-of-state ticket buyers and volunteers traveling to The Sentry, according to a PGA Tour spokesperson.

Lahainaluna High School Foundation president Mark Tillman said more than 60 students — in the band and on the robotics, wrestling, football and softball teams — are volunteering at the event in exchange for donated funds to help run their programs. Their responsibilities include distributing drinking water around the course and trash pickup.

“It’s just such a blessing because it has now become our sole source of income for donations and we are just having fun with it,” Tillman said. “They’ve been very generous to us over the years.”

The Sentry uses local businesses for transportation, accommodations, security, excursions, cultural activities and tournament operations like fuel, waste management and equipment rentals.

On the course this week, there will be a First Tee Game Changers Experience near the 18th green. There will be golf-themed games in the large tent and a tournament player will visit with young golfers on Thursday and Friday. And there are plenty of experiences and food options at the tournament.

Kama’āina tickets presented by Mauna Loa are priced at $50 each day for Thursday and Friday rounds and $75 for Saturday and Sunday rounds. Two children 15 and under are allowed to attend for free with a ticketed adult. More ticket information is available at thesentry.com/tickets.

Rolfing is confident that The Sentry has solid footing in a golf universe that includes a lot of uncertainty going forward. He said that’s due to Sentry’s long-term commitment as a sponsor and his belief that “somehow all these warring factions in professional golf are going to get back together.”.

Rolfing said because of the way The Sentry has evolved, it could become even bigger on the golf calendar going forward.

“I think this one will survive all that,” Rolfing said. “It’s too good a tournament. I think it could be even a little bigger than it is now. We could have a tournament of champions for the world. So, I’m not worried about this one at all. The date might get squeezed at some point and there might be a little shuffling of the date, but other than that, I think this one’s in really good shape.”