Part II of a series on the PGA Tour and its future in Hawaii
(Editor’s Note: The Sentry was supposed to be played this week at Kapalua Resort’s Plantation Course, but the event was canceled because of water issues affecting the condition of the course in September last year, but the resort managers have returned the course to competitive playing conditions. This is the second part of a series by Golfweek.com explaining the situation in Hawaii.)
Kapalua Resort’s Plantation Course, on the northwest coast of Maui, is the latest battleground in Hawaii to determine who controls the rights to water – the Native Hawaiians who grow kalo (taro) and other crops, or the golf courses, tourists and real estate developers. Ultimately, the courts could play a deciding factor in the fate of the PGA Tour’s The Sentry at the iconic course.
This dispute has been brewing for some time and exacerbated due to the deadly fires of 2023 in Lahaina and historic drought conditions throughout much of Maui in 2025. Water conservation mandates were implemented to prioritize the needs of the local community, placing golf courses at the bottom of the list.
The Hawaii Water Services Commission started sending regular notices of Tier 4 water curtailments in March. Under Tier 4, non-potable water use is exclusively limited to fire protection purposes.
Faced with limited water received by its supplier – Maui Land & Pineapple (MLP), one of Hawaii’s biggest land developers and owned by AOL co-founder Steve Case – Kapalua’s ownership group, TY Management Corporation – led by Tadashi Yanai, the founder of the company that owns clothing retailer Uniqlo and the second-wealthiest man in Japan – has sued MLP over the water being cut off. MLP has countersued, claiming that water is scarce because of low precipitation in the Pu’u Kukui watershed, Maui’s highest peak and one of the rainiest places on the planet, averaging almost 400 inches per year. MLP told MauiNow.com that it is simply following state mandates. Adding to the water battle is an effort by Maui County to explore buying MLP’s water distribution system.
It’s a battle of billionaires and Kapalua Resort’s two courses – Plantation and Bay – are caught up in the fight. But Kapalua’s brown and barren fairways at the Bay Course, which the resort elected to stop watering altogether this fall, “did highlight for the bigger world to see what’s happening here,” said lifelong West Maui resident Lauren Palakiko, who told Hawaii NewsNow that the fight over water in West Maui has been happening for more than a century.
Mark Rolfing, who has called Hawaii home for more than 50 years, spearheaded the original golf course water deal in 1987 when he proposed a joint venture between MLP and Rolfing Development to build the Plantation Course at Kapalua.
“To make a long story short,” Rolfing said, “after some considerable negotiation, MLP put in 500 acres and Rolfing put in the cash to build the course, and it was a perfect deal with one exception – they had all the water. I didn’t have any water. I had a sink in my condo, but I didn’t have any water unless they gave it to me.”
Over the years, the agreement was adequate for both parties, Rolfing said. That is until water got scarce and state water officials and the Hawaii State Supreme Court ruled that golf courses are lower in priority to Native Hawaiian landowners for use of surface water. Applications to water officials for allocations of water supply are in the process of being reviewed, according to Isaac Moriwake, an attorney with Earthjustice.
“The landmark Hawai‘i Supreme Court’s decision in (June) 2024 reinforces overarching legal principles governing water rights (e.g., the duty to protect water resources like instream flows and groundwater supplies; the lower priority assigned to golf course irrigation in relation to legally protected uses such as Native Hawaiian cultural practices) that provide the broader legal context for the TY/MLP case,” Morikawe wrote in an email response. Earthjustice contends state water regulators should prioritize farmers over tourism businesses.
Back to Rolfing’s summary of the Kapalua relationship with MLP. MLP sold the Plantation course to TY in 2009 and the Bay course in 2010. As part of the purchases, the two organizations executed water delivery agreements, wherein MLP would operate and maintain the ditch system to deliver surface water to Kapalua in exchange for payments by TY.
The Honokohau Stream is experiencing some of its lowest flow rates on record. The Honokohau Ditch, which was built for pineapple plantations by missionaries more than 100 years ago and has provided irrigation water to West Maui ever since, is alleged to have been damaged by 2018 storms and landslides and is providing minimal water levels. Available flows are being prioritized for the County of Maui Water Treatment Facility.
TY is trying to design and permit additional water sources for their business, but these sources can’t come on board quickly enough to meet current needs. MLP offered emergency water from its wells in limited quantity but it came with strings attached – including dismissing its formal complaint to the State Public Utilities Commission or file any other complaints with other agencies and agree to updated rates for non-potable water. On July 3, TY replied that the water crisis was becoming an urgent matter and that it was being used to pressure concessions. It took just a matter of days for MLP to reject TY’s counterproposal and decline further meetings with TY’s representative.
Kapalua has two wells, each with a capacity to pump a million gallons per day to put into the reservoir. “That (water) needs to be shared with the residences and farmers too,” said Alex Nakajima, Kapalua Golf’s general manager.
If this dispute is confusing, you’re not alone. “The rainfall isn’t that much different than two years ago and we’ve never had a water restriction before. So, we are wondering why now?” Nakajima added. “The water usage was 50 times what it is now in the days of growing pineapple (and sugarcane).”
The MLP always pumped into the reservoir in the past when the stream was low. The farmers who grow kalo don’t have the money to synch into the wells, and it’s expensive to dig a well and treat it to grow crops and drinking water and any other purpose. The farmers are dependent on rain and any surface water delivered to them.
TY – together with farmers and homeowners such as Hua Momona Farms LLC, Plantation Estates Lot Owners’ Association; Association of Apartment Owners of the Coconut Grove on Kapalua, and the Association of Apartment Owners of the Ridge at Kapalua – filed a lawsuit on Aug. 18 in Maui Circuit Court alleging that MLP has been negligent in maintaining its Honokohau ditch system, which supplies water to West Maui. [MLP filed its own countersuit.]
“That disrepair, not any act of God, or force of nature, or other thing, is why users who need it are currently without water,” according to the complaint. “Plaintiffs bring this case against MLP because MLP has abused the trust of residents, farmers, and businesses in Kapalua and parts of West Maui, all of whom are now being starved for irrigation water by MLP.”
In late August, the state Commission on Water Resource Management (CWRM) authorized the temporary use of groundwater wells to irrigate the Plantation and Bay Courses during drought periods. This decision provided immediate relief for the entire Kapalua community. But the damage was done. the Tour’s agronomy team conducted a site visit in early September. That team concluded the condition of the Plantation Course had been significantly compromised by the drought and water limitations and given the extensive lead time required to prepare for a Tour event, the Tour announced on Sept. 16 that The Sentry wouldn’t be contested at Kapalua in 2026 because it could no longer guarantee “Tour-standard playing conditions” for what would have been the Jan. 8-11 event.
In December, the CWRM voted to fine MLP $140,000 for failing to deliver enough water to west Maui streams, but will allow the company to use the money for system improvements with community input.
The court battle is just getting started, and neither side is giving any indication a resolution is near. The discovery phase kicked off on Jan. 6, and the court case isn’t scheduled to begin until March 2027, leading to great uncertainty for the future of The Sentry being played in Maui next year or beyond. As Sentry officials, who are in Maui this week, plan for next year, Nakajima said the future is as murky as the water-rights issue.
“If I were Sentry and the PGA Tour, they need to know that the water issue is resolved before really committing to Kapalua,” he said. “Can we get there? That’s the biggest question. Nobody knows how deep the cost could be. If it’s 2-3 years to fix something, then there it is. Until we go through the discovery phase and send our experts to the mountains and the ditch and the dam, we don’t know but we’re doing everything we can.”
“We’ve got a pretty big fight going on here between TY and Maui Land and Pine,” Rolfing said, “and I don’t know how it’s going to get resolved. I know who’s got the most money, and it’s not Maui Land & Pine.”
Next: Who knew what and when to cancel The Sentry at Kapalua.