Ongoing extreme weather forced the cancellation of the PGA Tour’s The Sentry tournament, TurfNet reports.
What’s happening?
On September 16, the PGA Tour issued an update regarding The Sentry.
The tournament was scheduled to begin on January 7 on The Plantation Course at the Kapalua resort in Lāhainā, Hawaiʻi.
In August 2023, Lāhainā was ravaged by wildfires, an extreme weather event driven in large part by dry vegetation exacerbated by persistent drought. A second, smaller fire threatened the rural Hawaiian island of Kauaʻi in 2024.
In its announcement, the PGA Tour confirmed that “the 2026 playing of The Sentry will not be contested at The Plantation Course at Kapalua because of ongoing drought conditions and related challenges on the island of Maui.”
During a PGA Tour visit to the Kapalua resort earlier this month, a team determined that “the condition of the Plantation Course had been significantly compromised by the drought and water limitations.”
Hawaiʻi Governor Josh Green, M.D., expressed gratitude to the PGA Tour for its ongoing support and agreed with the decision, adding that “protecting our water and supporting our communities come first.”
Why is this important?
Hawaiʻi has endured a lengthy period of extreme drought, beginning around 2008 and persisting into the present, according to the state’s government website.
Today, 90% of the archipelago state gets less rainfall than it did just a century ago. At the same time, the state said, the “number of floods per year has increased sharply since the 1960s and is expected to keep rising.”
Those circumstances might seem contradictory, but as the site explained, when much-needed rain does fall, it tends to occur “all at once.” Moreover, Hawaiian officials noted that abrupt changes to weather patterns made “predictive models increasingly inaccurate.”
A rapidly shifting climate has wrought havoc on weather patterns around the world, and the challenges Hawaiʻi faces are, unfortunately, a tidy example of the scourge of extreme weather.
Hawaiian officials explained that the state has always experienced hurricanes, wildfires, and floods, but an overheating planet acts as an accelerant for intense and violent weather, making it more frequent, costlier, and deadlier.
What’s being done about Hawaiʻi’s drought and water crisis?
In July, the state’s largest supplier of electricity, Hawaiian Electric, prepared emergency power shutoffs for at-risk homes when conditions indicated a high risk of wildfires.
Although that measure protects people and structures from some wildfire risk, residents on the ground demanded more from local officials the same day The Sentry was canceled.
Honolulu’s KHON covered an “informal hearing” held by the Commission on Water Resource Management in West Maui, during which residents pleaded for water access.
“Action is what’s needed here. We’ve been talking a lot. For years. And things have only gotten worse, I mean in terms of just water supply,” Earthjustice attorney Mahesh Cleveland remarked.
Honokohau resident Kekai Kekahi also spoke, asserting that officials and local stakeholders have made “jokes” about the struggles of locals amid ongoing drought conditions.
“That’s how I know you guys are disconnected to the realities in Lāhainā,” Kekahi stated.
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