Thu Oct 23 13:40:00 UTC 2025: Okay, here’s a news article summarizing and rewriting the provided information:

PGA Tour Cancels The Sentry Amid Maui Water Crisis, Pushes Season Start to Mid-January

(Honolulu, HI) – For the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic, a PGA Tour event has been canceled. The Sentry, traditionally the tour’s season-opening tournament held at the Plantation Course at Kapalua on Maui, will not take place in 2026 due to ongoing water restrictions and a legal dispute affecting the golf course’s operations.

The decision to cancel The Sentry, a $20 million signature event featuring PGA Tour winners and top FedEx Cup finishers, marks the latest start to a PGA Tour season since its formation in 1969. The Sony Open in Honolulu, scheduled for January 15-18, will now kick off the year.

Sentry Insurance, the tournament’s title sponsor with a commitment extending through 2035, stated that they chose to cancel rather than relocate the event to an alternative course that might compromise the tournament’s prestige. “We didn’t want it to be just, ‘Find a place for it in the schedule’, or, ‘Find a course for it that could host it.’ I wanted Sentry to remain the jewel that it is,” explained Stephanie Smith, Chief Marketing and Brand Officer at Sentry.

Kapalua’s Plantation Course and the Bay Course were forced to close in September due to severe water restrictions stemming from a conflict between Kapalua’s owner, Tadashi Yanai, and Maui Land & Pineapple (MLP), the company responsible for the area’s century-old water delivery system. Yanai has filed a lawsuit against MLP, alleging inadequate maintenance of the system, while MLP has filed a countersuit.

While the Plantation Course is slated to reopen for play on November 10 at a promotional rate, the PGA Tour determined that logistical hurdles made finding an alternative venue for The Sentry unfeasible.

The cancellation impacts several players who qualified for the tournament based on their PGA Tour wins but did not finish in the top 50 of the FedEx Cup standings. The tour has announced that those players – including Aldrich Potgieter and Min Woo Lee – will receive an invitation to the RBC Heritage at Hilton Head.

The future of The Sentry on Maui beyond 2026 remains uncertain. Smith stated it’s too soon to say whether the tournament will return to Kapalua in 2027, citing the ongoing water issues, legal disputes, and the course’s playability as key factors. Also uncertain is Hawaii’s place on the schedule, with Sony’s title sponsorship of the Sony Open ending after the tournament.

The developments coincide with ongoing efforts led by Tiger Woods to revamp the PGA Tour schedule through a Futures Competition Committee.

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