The Break: Finally, Golf is Back for 2026

We start a week later than we expected, but the PGA Tour is back this week with the Sony Open in Hawaii

Author

Ryan Ballengee
January 12, 2026

In partnership with

Primetime golf in Hawaii!

The PGA Tour and professional golf are back! The year didn’t start as scheduled, watching whales breach the Pacific Ocean at Kapalua. However, we get to watch 20 of the world top 50 compete this week in Honolulu at Waialae Country Club for the Sony Open in Hawaii.

Waialae is one of the shortest courses on the PGA Tour, but the Seth Raynor design is always a treat. The views are awesome, and you can feel the warmth through your TV (though, if you’re older, you remember when you could really feel the warmth through the TV). If the wind kicks up, Waialae gets way more interesting, but regardless of the forecast, the course tends to reward mid-length players with quality ballstriking. There are plenty of players in the 120-man field who can win.

We should also savor the flavor this week. There is a very real possibility that this is the last year for the event. Sony’s long run as title sponsor of this tournament — a staple of the tour since the ‘50s — will end after this week, barring a miracle. There are open whispers that the PGA Tour may well cut out the Aloha Swing from an overhauled schedule that could come as soon as 2027 and push the start of the season into February.

Taking a hatchet to the first few weeks of the year would be a mistake, in my view. Yes, neither The Sentry, nor the Sony Open, bring in a big fan presence. Everything is more expensive in Hawaii, and the tournaments aren’t raking in the bucks, which is increasingly important as Strategic Sports Group scrutinizes how the PGA Tour operates. However, the Hawaii events do offer the golf fan — particularly those of us in colder climates — a proper hook to get them back into golf.

What I wish would happen instead is that these two events would survive and move to a unique Sunday through Wednesday schedule, like we’re seeing this week in the ongoing Korn Ferry Tour opener at Atlantis in The Bahamas. Kick off the tournament in primetime, on network TV, and offer something to watch in between NFL playoff games and the staggering commercial load of those games. Then, for the next three weeknights, there’s no major competition for The Sentry (though there would be a Monday night NFL playoff game for the Hawaiian Open). NBC has openly embraced putting sports on in primetime basically every day of the week, adding the NBA and MLB into the mix. Why not a little golf, too?

Besides, if attendance is the concern, then make up for it with advertising rates for the rare primetime golf event that people might actually want to watch.

I realize that’s probably wishful thinking, but just because something comes with a premium price tag doesn’t mean it has to be first in line for private equity’s efforts at “streamlining.”

The golf fan experience matters, and golf fans can be football fans, too. The PGA Tour has long capitulated to the NFL, as though there’s no use in competing with our de facto national pastime. However, if golf can find more ways to get in front of network TV audiences in primetime, particularly with a creative approach that borrows from the TGL playbook, then the business side of things will work.

Stay One Scoop Ahead of the New Year

The new year is the perfect time to build healthy habits that actually stick. AG1 helps you stay one scoop ahead of the new year by supporting energy, gut health, and filling common nutrient gaps, all with a simple daily routine.

Instead of chasing resolutions that are hard to maintain, AG1 makes health easier. Just one scoop each morning supports digestive regularity, immune defense, and energy levels, making it one of the most effortless habits to keep all year long. A fresh year brings fresh momentum, and small daily habits can make a meaningful difference.

Start your mornings with AG1, the daily health drink with 75+ ingredients, including 5 probiotic strains, designed to replace a multivitamin, probiotics, and more, all in one scoop.

For a limited time only, get a FREE AG1 duffel bag and FREE AG1 Welcome Kit with your first AG1 subscription! Only while supplies last. Get started today.

This week, we have the PGA Tour season debut at the Sony Open in Hawaii, while the DP World Tour schedule starts for the year at the 60-player Dubai Invitational, headlined by Rory McIlroy, Tommy Fleetwood and Shane Lowry.

Dubai Invitational: Field | Betting Odds and First Looks

The Korn Ferry Tour season is underway at Atlantis Paradise Island, finishing up Wednesday.

The PGA Tour is dramatically reducing the FedEx Cup points available in the first two playoff events, and they’re now going to pay out the vast majority of the bonus money after the BMW Championship — including $23 million to the points leader.

If you would, please add Golf News Net as a trusted source on Google? All you have to do is click this link and confirm your choice. This tells Google that you want to see our content appear in your feed.

From the GNN Clubhouse

If you’d like your news included here and futher shared with our audience, I invite you to check out and join GNN Clubhouse.

What to do with Brooks Koepka

Brooks Koepka has formally applied for PGA Tour reinstatement, in another step in a process that looks more coordinated as it goes. This was the natural next step of Koepka walking away from LIV Golf and the final year of his deal. He wasn’t just going to play the DP World Tour — no offense, just Koepka only cares about the majors — and ride off into the sunset when his major exemptions expire.

Now, the next step is up to the PGA Tour, figuring out what to do with Koepka and how, if at all, to sanction and punish him for going and spending four years with LIV Golf.

Koepka has been open that he signed with LIV Golf because he thought his career was basically over with his knee condition in 2021 and 2022. He turned out to have another major in him, as well as several LIV wins (whatever stock you put in those is up to you). He never sued the PGA Tour, and he didn’t ever fully embrace LIV’s team aspect despite owning a quarter of his team, Smash GC (though that one compulsory early-morning military-style practice session Koepka called might suggest a little emotional investment).

How that all comes out in the (sports)wash is unclear. The Tour could follow what has seemingly become a sort-of precedent, requiring Koepka to sit out a year from when he last played a LIV Golf event. They could require him to sit out some lesser period of time, or none at all. They could deny him access to FedEx Cup bonus money for a period of time in his return. They could do nothing at all and just let him return scot-free.

I get the sense that the Tour believes this is their watershed moment to bring down LIV Golf, once and for all. Bring back Brooks on friendly terms and signal to the likes of Bryson DeChambeau and Jon Rahm that they’d be welcomed back with open arms. They all got their money from the Saudis, and that money likely isn’t being re-upped in a new deal.

Even if LIV Golf events got OWGR points sometime in 2026, the value of those events would almost entirely rely upon the major-exempted LIV Golf players competing well in the majors to uphold the field rankings.

Meanwhile, the PGA Tour has made it way easier for top-tier players to make staggering money and cement their status in the top 50.

However, the PGA Tour’s rank and file would be very unhappy being told to eat it yet again in the event that Koepka gets to come back without so much as a slap on the wrist. There should be some there there. The Tour has to balance a lot of stakeholders in this decision, but they likely see an opportunity to turn the page on a bizarre period in pro-golf history, and they’re going to take it.