With official confirmation that the Sony Open in Hawaii and the Sentry at Kapalua are gone for 2027 — and perhaps, indefinitely — now is a good time to take stock of some of the greatest memories these events leave us with.
When people talk about big moments in PGA Tour golf in Hawaii, two stand out above the others.
In 1983, at what was then called the Hawaiian Open, Isao Aoki made one of the most improbable and dramatic shots in golf history.
He needed a birdie to force a playoff with Jack Renner, who had already finished at 19 under. Instead, Aoki holed out from 128 yards to win outright.
In 2000, the Tournament of Champions’ second year at Kapalua, Tiger Woods and Ernie Els put on a show for the ages. It was then called the Mercedes Championships.
“We were right there, at each other’s throats,” Woods said later. “It was a lot of fun.”
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Both made eagle putts at No. 18 to force a playoff. Woods won it on the second playoff hole with a 40-foot birdie putt.
“It was the first event of the century and it might be the greatest of the century,” Mark Rolfing said in an interview Tuesday on The Golf Channel.
The best of the best played every year at Kapalua, as until the last few years it was only tournament winners from the previous season. Even when that changed, you had to have a high spot in the rankings to make the field.
It always seemed like some kind of poetic justice that Renner won the Hawaiian Open the year after he was stunned by Aoki’s epic shot. For Els, it took a bit longer. He won at Kapalua in 2003, by eight strokes.
For an encore, Els won a week later at Waialae, in a playoff over Aaron Baddeley. He became the first to win what has become known as the Hawaii Double, or Hawaii Slam. Els and Justin Thomas stand above the other five who have done it by winning both the same year.
Thomas did it in 2017, when he fired an opening round 59 at Waialae, a few days after dominating Kapalua to win by eight strokes. Like Els, Thomas is a two-time winner at the Sony Open.
Stuart Appleby also accomplished the unthinkable by winning three years in a row at Kapalua (2004-2006).
Around that time, a couple of local teenagers were stealing much of the show at Waialae.
Not only was Michelle Wie a girl, she was a 14-year-old Punahou student who missed the cut by just one stroke at Waialae in 2004, shooting 68 in the second round. She tried again in 2007 but finished her two rounds ahead of just a few other golfers. They included Jimmy Walker, who is the most recent back-to-back champion of the Sony Open, winning in 2014 and 2015.
It was also in 2007 when 5-foot-1, 16-year-old Moanalua student Tadd Fujikawa made the cut, and he did it in style, with a second-round eagle on No. 18. Fujikawa, now the third youngest to make the cut at a PGA Tour event, finished 20th.
Wie and Fujikawa attracted huge galleries, as might be expected. So did David Ishii in 1990, when he became the second player from Hawaii to win at Waialae, one shot ahead of Paul Azinger (who would win in 1993). Azinger had won the Tournament of Champions a month earlier, back then it was played at La Costa in Carlsbad, Calif.
Ishii, a state high school champion from Kauai High, won the inaugural Kapalua Open in 1982 (before it was a PGA Tour event). He was an All-American on the University of Houston team that won the 1977 NCAA championship. Ishii starred on the PGA of Japan Tour with 14 victories.
Ted Makalena was the first and only other Hawaii-born-and-raised winner, in 1966, the Hawaiian Open’s second year as a PGA Tour event. The Saint Louis School alum finished three strokes ahead of 1965 winner Gay Brewer and Billy Casper, two PGA stars who tied for second.
Two years later, at age 34, Makalena died as the result of a swimming accident. His memory lives on as a municipal course in Waipahu is named for him.