‘Every day the golf course is dying’: Kapalua closes courses for 2 months amid water dispute

Kapalua Resort, the Hawaii course where the PGA Tour has started every year since 1999, is shutting down for two months as it tries to save its water-starved courses during a dispute over the handling of a century-old water system on Maui.

The 60-day closure, which starts Sept. 2 for the Plantation and Bay courses at Kapalua, has raised concerns it might not be able to host The Sentry to start the tour’s 2026 season.

“The golf course has been damaged with no water for months,” Alex Nakajima, the general manager of Kapalua Golf and Tennis, said Tuesday. “I proposed to the owner that we need to shut the golf course to increase our chances to save the golf course and the tournament.”

He feels the best hope is to use what little water Kapalua gets for a slow-releasing fertilizer and to keep customers off the course while the staff removes dead grass.

Kapalua, known for the contrast of lush green fairways and the Pacific blue horizon, is more a blend of yellow and brown these days as the grass dies. Nakajima said the course has not had water since July 25.

Tadashi Yanai, the Japanese billionaire who owns Kapalua and who founded the apparel brand Uniqlo, Kapalua homeowners and Hua Momona Farms filed a lawsuit last week against Maui Land & Pineapple, alleging it has not maintained the water delivery system.

At the center of the dispute is the 11-mile Honokohau Stream and Ditch System that runs from the West Maui mountains and supplies irrigation water to the Kapalua area.

“MLP has knowingly … allowed the Ditch System to fall into a state of demonstrable disrepair. That disrepair, not any act of God, or force of nature, or other thing, is why users who need it are currently without water,” the lawsuit says.

Maui Land & Pineapple did not immediately respond to a message from the AP seeking comment. Race Randle, the CEO, said in a statement to Hawaii news outlets the lawsuit was an effort to obtain irrigation water “when West Maui is experiencing a historic drought.”

“Having tried and failed to get the regulatory agencies to force this irresponsible water use, the golf courses, unfortunately, turned to the courts,” he said.

The lawsuit claims Yanai entered into “water delivery agreements” when he bought the Kapalua properties that would allow the courses to be kept in good condition. The filing says these agreements stipulated Maui Land “will at all times exercise commercially reasonable efforts to manage, repair and maintain” the ditch system for a reliable delivery of irrigation water.

The PGA Tour said only that it was monitoring “the ongoing water conservation requirements affecting Kapalua Resort.”

The tour said it has been in touch with the title sponsor, Wisconsin-based Sentry Insurance, along with Kapalua Resort, Maui County and Hawaii’s state government to assess any potential impact in staging the $20 million signature event. The tournament is scheduled for Jan. 8-11.

TY Management — Yanai’s company — said The Sentry brings in some $50 million in economic benefits, plus the tour and Sentry’s charitable component.

The lawsuit, filed in state court on Maui, asks that Maui Land & Pineapple honor agreements and take reasonable steps to repair and maintain the ditch system so that water can be reliably delivered.

The lawsuit claims the current drought has no bearing on the problem and cites U.S. Geological Survey data showing the watershed in the West Maui mountains gets more annual rainfall than Portland and Seattle.

“Water is scarce not because rain is falling in significantly smaller quantities. Rather, water is scarce because MLP has failed to honor its promises to maintain the infrastructure used to collect, carry, and store it properly,” the suit claims.

Meanwhile, Troon-managed Kapalua Resort had been offering discounts to customers because of the deteriorating conditions of its golf courses.

Nakajima said the course will have to be closed to have any hope of staging The Sentry.

“We have to do this immediately,” he said. “Every day the golf course is dying.”