The aroma of smoke remains five months after the inferno, a wicked perfume of melted asphalt and charred plastic and scorched trees and the ashes that cover up what once was. The smoke arrives some 10 minutes outside Lahaina, a warning of what’s ahead, yet nothing can prepare the eyes for what they’ll see, which is nothing. Nothing but rubble and sand, empty streets littered with abandoned vehicles and concrete porches without houses attached. The smoke lingers here, a solemn nod to what happened and a reminder that some flames continue to burn well after they’ve been extinguished.
“It happened so quick, no one got a chance to get anything out,” says Bryan Pierce, head superintendent at Kapalua’s Plantation course, site of this week’s PGA Tour season-opening event. “You were lucky to get yourself out.”
Pierce would know. He and his family lost everything in the 2023 Maui wildfires, which engulfed and wiped out the town of Lahaina last August. More than 100 people died and 2,200 buildings were destroyed, with an estimated cost of damage totalling $US6 billion. Nearly all Lahainians are involved in the tourism sector, and with the industry down due to the fires, a number have been laid off from work. There’s a question – both due to toxins released from materials caught in the blaze and the cost associated with rebuilding in this remote state – if Lahaina, as it once was, is gone forever.
With so much palpable hurt and struggle, it’s fair to ask why a professional golf tournament is being played just minutes away in Kapalua. But to those here, the answer is simple:
“We needed this to keep our hope alive.”
The Sentry (formerly the Tournament of Champions) is as low-key as the PGA Tour gets. The field has 59 competitors this year, and with no cut, players are guaranteed a six-figure payday just for showing up. There aren’t many fans, and because the property is so mountainous and undulating, those who are here are often a good distance from the players, giving the event an air of a Saturday Stableford. The Plantation course is hardly a difficult test – the average winning score the past three years is just shy of 29-under par – and because of the holidays and starting a new season with a clean slate, players tend to be as relaxed and cheery as you’ll see all year. It’s still competition against the world’s best, for sure, but you’re excused for thinking it’s also a glorified exhibition.
This year is not that. The tournament is serving as a pep rally, as the Sentry is the first significant gathering held around this part of the island since the wildfires. Golf is still the primary attraction, but it’s also delivering a message to the rest of the world that Maui is open for business… and that it needs help.
“This week obviously means a lot more to me than just playing golf and trying to win,” says Collin Morikawa, whose grandparents once had a business in Lahaina. “Look, that is the ultimate goal, and if I do that, we’re going to succeed in every way. But it’s about raising awareness, obviously, still about the fires that had happened… I think we all saw it first-hand, all the players driving in this week.”
The tour, its players and Sentry have turned this week into a relief fund. Sentry donated $US2 million to recovery efforts. The tour will use Saturday as a fundraising effort for the local high school. Morikawa spent time on Monday boxing meals for those displaced and is donating $US2,000 for every birdie and $US4,000 for every eagle he makes at Kapalua. Patrick Cantlay is launching a campaign for first responders, Tony Finau hosted an event for charity, and Xander Schauffele ran a clinic for junior golfers who lost their homes.
It’s a fine line, trying to do good without turning the proceedings into an overly sentimental affair. Or worse, coming off as using the tragedy to help sell the tour product and re-instill such much-needed goodwill for the game. There are also the optics. More than 6,000 Hawaiians remain homeless and many of them live in tents at nearby parks or beaches. The recovery efforts have been slow and protests have formed over the government’s response. Conducting a golf tournament that will ultimately disperse tens of millions to the golfers against that backdrop is difficult.
The tour is well aware of this tightrope. Players received a note this week not to ask residents about the fire unless it is brought up first. This is not a matter of whitewashing what occurred; it’s just that, for many on Maui, asking them about the fire is asking them to relive the worst days of their lives. And it’s hard to look towards the future when everyone wants to know about something you’re trying to keep in the past.
While the needs of victims need to be prioritised, this is far from an instance where the tour wedged its way in and forced the area to follow along. Maui wants the tour here; the Sentry and Kapalua offer a four-day tourism ad, its scenic and serene views beckoning to those stuck in the doldrums of an American winter. The telecast also helps put Lahaina back in the forefront of the public, one that’s mostly forgotten about Maui over the past five months.
“There’s always so much going on in the world. If something like this isn’t happening to you, you tend to forget about it after a few days,” Rolfing said. “There are thousands here that need help, both in the short term and long. The tournament allows us to show this remains an ongoing struggle. How do you move on after losing everything? But we also have to keep going, and this is one of those times golf can really be a force for good.”
In the USA, sports can be prioritised over more pressing matters, and sometimes that noise is in desperate need of being turned down. Yet sports also remain one of the few vessels with the ability to bring this ever-divided culture together. Something that’s worth cheering about while pausing the rest of life, if only for a few hours. Something that can offer a warm feeling inside when everything else feels cold.
It’s a sentiment encapsulated in the work done by Pierce and the Kapalua staff. Not only did Pierce lose his house and possessions in the fire, but so did 20 members of his staff. He and his family have bounced around from one living situation to the next during the past five months. In that span he went home just once, finding only the foundation of his house. He hasn’t been back since; the pain, he says, is too heavy.
Despite the turbulence, Pierce continued to come to the course. He knew so many others needed the pay cheque to keep going and, more importantly, that the job would provide the slightest sense of routine in the face of the unknown. When word got back to Pierce and his team last year that the tour would return to Maui come January, he knew there was work to be done… and that the tournament could be a catalyst to moving ahead.
“I was so pumped. I love tournament golf,” Pierce says. “I know this is just golf, right? But to give us something to look forward to, something to show off and be proud of, it meant more than we can say.”
Pierce says this, standing against the backdrop of the 11th hole, arguably the most picturesque vista on site, where the green seems to fall into Honolua Bay. It seems cruel that something so horrific can happen at a place so beautiful. But Kapalua is not beautiful on its own. The course viewers will see this week is the byproduct of the sweat of Pierce and his staff, and the fortitude it takes to keep going when you don’t know what’s on the other side.
“I hope golf fans know how many people came together to make this event happen,” Pierce says. “And that we’re trying to do it for something bigger than ourselves.”
A golf tournament does not remove the smoke. The problems of now will remain issues for the foreseeable future, and there are so many steps until life is normal again. But the first step is an important one, and this week is exactly that, allowing Maui to show it’s still standing, and will be long after the haze clears.
