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Column: Amid so much change, Sentry TOC set up for long-term success

Between the Lines

By Robert Collias 10 min read

It was not that long ago -- 2017, to be precise -- that the Tournament of Champions at the Kapalua Plantation Course was in danger of leaving Maui.

Now, thanks to Sentry Insurance and some unfathomable circumstances in the last few months, most of them this week, it is cemented here through well into the next decade. In 2020, Sentry announced a 10-year extension to its original commitment here and this week it added five more years to its contract.

That commitment through 2035 is four years longer than any other current title sponsorship agreement on the PGA Tour.

"Sentry has done a tremendous job of working to elevate and support the Sentry Tournament of Champions since becoming the title sponsor in 2018," PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan said in an exclusive email interview with The Maui News this week. "They have a clear vision for this event and for supporting the Maui community as demonstrated by their commitment through 2035.

"With all of these components in place, the golf world will be squarely focused on the island of Maui in January 2024 as the Sentry Tournament of Champions kicks off the TOUR's schedule."

The current winners-only event will celebrate its 25th year here in January. Arguably, the best field ever here was in 2021, when top-30 players on the final FedEx Cup points list the previous year were eligible to join calendar-year winners to help the field after 11 tournaments in 2020 were missed due to the pandemic.

This week, the PGA Tour announced that the TOC will make that change on a permanent basis to include all winners of official PGA Tour events in the preceding calendar year and also the top-30 players from the FedEx Cup playoffs points list who qualify for the Tour Championship.

Mark Rolfing lives in Kapalua, set the stage for the TOC landing here originally with his Kapalua International event in the 1980s and '90s, was the TOC tournament director for one year, and is an analyst for NBC Sports and The Golf Channel.

Simply put, he knows more about the PGA Tour's history here than anyone else on the planet.

"This is monumental," Rolfing said Tuesday. "This eligibility expansion, to me, is the single most important thing that we've done other than to have Sentry as the sponsor. This is going to secure the future, obviously through 2035 now."

Rolfing said that Sentry being the sponsor is one of the biggest things to happen to any tournament on the tour.

"I can't even describe how fortunate we were and our entire community," Rolfing said. "I've been involved with the PGA Tour for 40 years now and I've never seen a sponsor like Sentry. ... I don't even like calling them a sponsor, they are so much more than that.

"There probably wasn't a lot of reason for them to sign an extension now. They just signed one a few years ago. But to me what they're saying to the world is: 'We support the PGA Tour. We believe in the PGA Tour.' ... This is a massive statement for the PGA Tour and particularly it's a statement for Maui."

Current Sentry TOC executive director Max Novena echoed Rolfing's thoughts. Novena spent the last five days in Stevens Point, Wis., in a sort of home-and-home collaboration with Sentry officials in their hometown.

"I think first off, I want to thank Sentry and their commitment and how they've stepped up for the PGA Tour, but more importantly for our community, for Maui," Novena said. "It's just incredible what they've done, not only over the last five years, but now with their commitment through 2035. In turn, we have the stability to continue to build and grow for our local community for the next 13 years.

"So, first and foremost, thank you to Sentry."

The TOC joins a select list of events that the top-30 players who qualify for the Tour Championship earn exemptions into, including the Masters Tournament, PGA Championship, U.S. Open, Genesis Scottish Open and British Open.

Scott Stallings, Cameron Young, Collin Morikawa, Corey Conners, Brian Harman, Sahith Theegala, Adam Scott and Aaron Wise will be exempt for the 2023 tournament as a result of the new criteria.

Novena said the new eligibility allowances create "certainty around the product on the golf course and we know that we're going to have one of the best, one of the most exceptional fields in all of golf."

Rolfing says the changes to the world of golf are just beginning.

"There's going to be some massive changes, changes that you can't even comprehend right now, in terms of the schedule, where tournaments are played, who plays in them, what their formats are," Rolfing said. "All of that is going to change dramatically. The only events that aren't going to change now are the majors and a few really key PGA Tour events. Just a few, and we're one of them."

The tour appears headed to a tiered-tournament slate, and the Sentry Tournament of Champions is clearly in the upper part of that stratosphere.

"You're going to have tiers of events and I don't mean T-E-A-R-S, I mean T-I-E-R-S," Rolfing said. "It's a little harsh to think that there will be A-level events and B-level events, but there's going to be a big division now between these elite events that have gigantic purses and the top players playing against each other. That was the goal, that's the goal of what the PGA Tour players want. I will tell you that this decision to go to the top 30 was a player-driven decision.

"This is what the players wanted and that says a lot to me. That's why this tournament is going to get support forever now, until 2035."

In its history here, the tournament was titled the Mercedes Championships -- yes, with an "S" on the end of Championship -- from 1999 to 2006. Benz was added with a hyphen to Mercedes from 2007-09.

Seoul Broadcasting System was the title sponsor in 2010, Hyundai took over from 2011-16, and SBS was forced by contract as the secondary sponsor in 2017 to take over as title sponsor when Hyundai pulled out.

Sentry took the title sponsor role in 2018 and almost immediately fell in love with the place, to the point that the company's CEO Pete McPartland now calls Maui "our second home."

Since Sentry took over the event, it has raised more than $2.2 million for Maui charities, breaking annual records each of the last three years, including $642,490 this year.

In just five events here, Sentry has accounted for nearly 30 percent of the $8 million or so total donated since the event moved to Maui in 1999.

"One of the most rewarding aspects of the PGA TOUR is being a part of title sponsors engaging with the communities they support," Monahan said. "There are so many great examples of this across our schedule. Sentry has worked very hard to improve the tournament experience and its support of the Maui community year round. We're excited how their long-term commitment sends a clear message of support for years to come."

The event becomes the PGA Tour season opener in 2024, and that is significant in so many ways.

"We are going to open the season, we are going to become what you and I envisioned 15 years ago," Rolfing said. "I think we're going to treat it like opening day -- because it is opening day -- and do all kinds stuff. You can't just all of a sudden say on Thursday morning, 'Hi everybody. Here we are, we're having a tournament.'

"You've got to do a lot of stuff, so this is a monumental day for our tournament and our island. The future is now secure."

All of this, of course, has come in the wake of the LIV Golf series that has claimed former stalwarts here like Bryson DeChambeau, Brooks Koepka, Dustin Johnson, Patrick Reed and Sergio Garcia, and reports are rampant now that Sentry's defending champion Cam Smith will bolt for the Saudi Arabia government-backed league after this week's Tour Championship.

Smith is currently No. 2 in the Official World Golf Ranking and has been linked to a deal worth more than $140 million to join the LIV series.

"Very concerned about it and I don't think probably most people took it seriously enough -- I have been concerned for quite a while," Rolfing said. "But the PGA Tour is still where the best players and majority are going to play. If Cam Smith goes, then OK, that'll be the first top-10 player that has gone, but in the end, the PGA Tour is going to prevail and I don't know what kind of sustainability that LIV Golf is going to have.

"I think there's probably some guys that have already begun to regret the decision that have gone, maybe. There's no TV deal, they're losing all their sponsors, they're not going to get world ranking points, they're not going to get in the major championships. There was only one reason why everybody did it and that is for the money."

Rolfing pointed to the breathtaking finish at the Plantation Course in 2020 when Justin Thomas won the event in a playoff with Xander Schauffele and Reed.

"Think of a Reed, Schauffele and Thomas playing off and the emotion and the excitement that Patrick Reed is never going to get again, never," Rolfing said. "That's a shame to me."

Monahan announced in June that the Sentry was one of eight tournaments to significantly boost its prize purse.

The purse has been increased from $8.2 million last year to $15 million for the 2023 event -- the 1999 event's purse here was $2.6 million.

The event got another booster shot on Wednesday when the tour announced that top-20 Tour players on the Player Impact Program are committed to 20 PGA Tour events, including 12 "Elevated Events" if they are eligible for that event -- the Sentry TOC is on that short list.

The PIP is measured by categories including: internet searches, general awareness, golf fan awareness, media mentions and broadcast exposure.

The best golfers will rise using that criteria, which even as a 58-year-old man, I myself can see that those measuring sticks will help reach a lot of younger fans.

Keeping young players like Jordan Spieth and Justin Thomas -- both former champions here and each huge supports of this event -- in the mix here is absolutely crucial, IMHO.

"As an elevated event, there is always the sense of accomplishment that comes with playing the Sentry Tournament of Champions," Monahan said. "There is a lot of added excitement amongst our players when you combine the purse increase and that it will kick off our 2024 FedExCup Season in Maui when we return to a calendar year season."

* Robert Collias is at rcollias@mauinews.com.

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