KAPALUA

Mark Rolfing calls the Mercedes-Benz Championship at the Kapalua Plantation Course ''the mother ship.''

Right now, that is not good news.

Not for a state that is no longer the exclusive home of the NFL's Pro Bowl, and lost the PGA Grand Slam of Golf to Bermuda a few years ago.

Not for a state dependent on tourism, and on the golf industry.

The Mercedes has one year left on its current contract - and listening to what tournament chairman Gary Planos and PGA Tour commissioner Tim Finchem have said this week about the future of the event on Maui shows that the picture is, at best, out of focus.

''It doesn't mean we will do anything particularly different, but we are looking at some other options,'' Fin-chem said Wednesday.

That came on the heels of Planos saying Sunday: ''You know, right now we just have to wait and see where this crazy world is taking us.''

Rolfing, an analyst for NBC Sports and The Golf Channel and a longtime Kapalua resident, knows that uncertainty is not good news.

''This is the mother ship, this one is the mother ship,'' he said. ''There is a contract between the (Hawaii Tourism Authority) and the PGA Tour, but in the end, I think that what happens with this event will dictate what happens with the future of all of professional golf here.''

With the current dark clouds over the worldwide economy, golf is looking for stability.

''Like any other industry, golf is definitely not recession-proof,'' Rolfing said. ''I think it is better off than a lot of other sports. Interestingly enough, a lot of the big sports businesses are in more trouble than the PGA Tour. To me, that says a lot about what the PGA Tour has done in terms of planning for something like this happening, but it is not recession-proof.''

Rolfing feels that if the Mercedes goes - and there are rumblings that other Maui venues are candidates if Kapalua is finished after Jan. 10, 2010 - so does the Sony Open at Oahu's Waialae Country Club, the first full-field event on the PGA Tour slate.

''The Sony would have a really tough time without the Mercedes as a lead-in and you are going to see that this year,'' Rolfing said. ''Already there are a number of players in this field that are not going to play in Sony next week, for a variety of reasons. All you have to do is look at the old Hawaiian Open - when it moved to February as a standalone event, it didn't work. It is kind of a double package here, I think.''

Will this event be in Hawaii in 2011? Let me start the answer to that question by saying no resort staff works harder to put on a good show than the one at Kapalua, which held the first Kapalua LPGA Classic just 12 weeks ago on the Bay Course. It is the only resort in the world that can say it has both an LPGA and PGA event.

''Right now, Kapalua's got two tournaments,'' Rolfing said. ''One has no sponsor (the LPGA event) and one has a sponsor that hasn't re-signed yet (Mercedes). So, that to me is a big question mark. I certainly don't think Kapalua could have two tournaments with neither one being sponsored.''

Maui lost the Stingrays in the first edition of the Hawaii Winter Baseball League in 1997, and lost the Hula Bowl - to Oahu - in 2001. It still has the EA Sports Maui Invitational, the best week of college basketball this side of the Atlantic Coast Conference tournament, but golf is a key, according to Rolfing.

''Maui needs a big event,'' he said. ''In all the years that I have been here, Maui has proven that outside of the island of Oahu that it can stage a big event. I would hate to see Maui without a big event. That would be bad.''

Because the Mercedes is a winners-only tournament, it depends on having the top players in a limited, no-cut field. None of the top four in the world rankings - Tiger Woods, Sergio Garcia, Phil Mickelson or Padraig Harrington - are among the 33 golfers on Maui this week. Only three of the top 10 are in the field - Vijay Singh, Camilo Villegas and Ernie Els.

Woods has missed this event for four straight years - twice while rehabilitating from an injury, including this time. He played in the first seven, winning in 2000.

''I think Tiger will come to this event again, I really do,'' Rolfing said. ''The biggest issue for Tiger is the date, there is no question. And we have talked about the fact that his tournament (the Chevron World Challenge) in California is so late in the year now, it ends on the 21st of December, it did this last year. There is just no downtime.''

''So, I don't think Tiger is really an issue now. The bigger problem is that January is starting to become sort of an offseason for some of the PGA Tour players and it is primarily because the game has grown so much globally. I'm not sure that January in general is the best time to be playing here.''

With PGA Tour players considering dual membership on the European Tour for the lucrative Race to Dubai - they must play in 12 European Tour events for membership, but get seven of those with majors and World Golf Championship events - the amount of time off is growing smaller and smaller. The European Tour also entices players with appearance fees, something the PGA Tour doesn't allow.

Woods' absence, even with solid reasons like recovering from knee surgery, hurts any tournament. His epic Kapalua duel with Els in 2000 drew large television ratings, and Rolfing called it the ''best finish of this century.''

The Plantation Course shut down for three months to rework the greens, due in part to a comment by Woods following the 2005 event, but circumstances have prevented the world's top player from being back to take on the new greens.

Kapalua is hardly the only event in question - the tour currently has 11 tournaments sponsored by financial-service companies, and this is one of five sponsored by a car manufacturer.

The Bob Hope Chrysler Classic in two weeks has called in Arnold Palmer to host the five-round event.

''I hope that everybody just steps back and says, 'What is the best thing?' Not just for 2011, but for the next decade,'' Rolfing said. ''Everybody that is involved in the discussion understands the issues. It is working marginally well now at best.

''We all know that the economic climate is not good, but it is going to change. It is going to get better. And we have got to be ready for it when it changes and we have to have a plan in place that is going to maximize this turnaround. Where is the tournament played? Who is the sponsor? What's the date? What's the eligibility? Those are the issues.''

When a sponsor must put up at least $6 million - the purse this week is $5.6 million - it raises another question about not whether this event should remain, but if, in reality, it can.