One week before the Ryder Cup is contested in New York for the first time in 30 years, the PGA of America announced three more of its major championship tournaments through 2035 will be held in the Empire State.
The KPMG Women’s PGA will be played on the Black Course at Bethpage Black in 2028, while the PGA Championship will go to the same course for the second time in 2033. The PGA of America said the PGA Championship will be played at Oak Hill Country Club, near Rochester, for the fifth time in 2035.
The Ryder Cup matches between the United States and reigning champion Europe begin Sept. 26 at Bethpage Black — the beefy public course on Long Island that hosted the U.S. Open, a major run by the United States Golf Association, in 2002 and 2009.
The Women’s PGA has been jointly run by the PGA of America and the LPGA Tour since 2015 when the second-oldest major in women’s golf received a significant upgrade. It had replaced a regular LPGA event held in the Rochester area at Locust Grove and Monroe, but it had not been back to New York under the tournament structure since 2015 at Westchester.
“Bringing the KPMG Women’s PGA Championship to Bethpage Black is a significant milestone and reflects our commitment to staging this event at premier courses in major markets,” Don Rea Jr., who is serving a two-year term as president of the PGA of America, said in Wednesday’s announcement of the future major sites.
Since the PGA of America’s collaboration with the LPGA, the Women’s PGA has gone to eight courses that previously hosted majors, including Baltusrol in New Jersey near New York City, Olympia Fields near Chicago, Hazeltine near Minneapolis and Congressional near Washington D.C.
“Venues matter. They elevate our athletes and amplify the moments that define our game,” LPGA commissioner Craig Kessler said.
Brooks Koepka won the two most recent PGA Championships held in New York, in 2019 at Bethpage Black and in 2023 at Oak Hill.
The PGA Championship moved from August to May starting in 2019, and it has managed to escape frigid weather at Bethpage Black in 2019 and Oak Hill in 2023, although there was a frost delay in the first round at Oak Hill.
New York also has the U.S. Open next year at Shinnecock Hills, and the Western Golf Association is bringing the BMW Championship — a FedEx Cup playoff event on the PGA Tour — to Liberty National in New Jersey in 2027.
The PGA Tour stopped going to the New York metropolitan area in 2021 when it lost a title sponsor that had rotated the first postseason event between New York and Boston.
The Ryder Cup, which is expecting large and loud crowds at Bethpage Black, last was in New York at Oak Hill in 1995. Europe won that year, the start of a stretch in which it has captured the Ryder Cup 10 of the past 14 times it was on the line.
Ready for whatever
VIRGINIA WATER, England — Whatever heckling European players might face at the Ryder Cup could be what they already have heard before, all because of virtual reality headsets that Rory McIlroy said can be adjusted to hear the harshest abuse.
Ryder Cup captain Luke Donald has said his European team will be prepared for the noise at Bethpage Black, the public course with the reputation for having among the rowdiest and at times obnoxious golf fans.
McIlroy, the 36-year-old from Northern Ireland who is No. 2 in the Official Word Golf Ranking, told reporters after the DP World Tour’s BMW PGA Championship on Sunday that Donald handed players the VR equipment the Tuesday night before during a team gathering. It allows players to visualize the course while adjusting the noise — and insults — from outside the ropes.
“It is just to simulate the sights and sounds and noise,” said McIlroy, who beat England’s Justin Rose in a playoff at the Masters in April to complete the career Grand Slam. “That’s the stuff that we are going to have to deal with. So it’s better to try to desensitize yourself as much as possible before you get in there. You can get them to say whatever you want them to say.
“So you can go as close to the bone as you like.”
Europe had 11 players at Wentworth and was headed for New York for practice at Bethpage Black. Sepp Straka, who plays under the Austrian flag but lives in the U.S., was home with a newborn during the BMW Championship but was expected to join them.
Straka is among five European players who have never competed at Bethpage Black.
Europe last won the Ryder Cup on U.S. soil in 2012 at Medinah Country Club near Chicago, and that required a stunning comeback led by Ian Poulter.
“We are doing everything we can to best prepare ourselves for what it is going to feel like on Friday week,” McIlroy said. “But nothing can really prepare you until you’re actually in that. You can wear all the VR headsets you want and do all the different things we’ve been trying to do to get ourselves ready, but once the first tee comes on Friday, it’s real and we just have to deal with whatever’s given.”
Europe can at least count on more support than its last road Ryder Cup. That was in 2021 at Wisconsin’s Whistling Straits, with worldwide travel restrictions from the COVID-19 pandemic still in place. There were hardly any European fans at all in an American rout.
Europe took back the trophy in dominant fashion two years ago at Marco Simone in Italy.
Masters on Prime
AUGUSTA, Ga. — Amazon Prime Video will stream two hours of coverage during the first and second rounds of the Masters beginning next year.
The Masters will stream on Prime from 1-3 p.m. Eastern daily on April 9-10, leading into ESPN’s coverage both days from 3-7:30 p.m.
“Working alongside Amazon in this capacity is an exciting opportunity for the Masters Tournament and its fans,” Fred Ridley, chairman of Augusta National and the Masters, said in a release announcing the move. “We are proud of our longstanding partnerships with CBS Sports and ESPN, who have set the highest standard for broadcast coverage of the Masters. The addition of Amazon will only further our abilities to expand and enhance how the Tournament is presented and enjoyed.”
Paramount Plus will stream the third and fourth rounds on April 11 and 12 from noon to 2 p.m. before CBS takes over immediately after.
With the addition of Prime, primary broadcast and streaming coverage of the Masters will be at least 27 hours, up from 18 hours last year.
“It’s an honor for all of us at Amazon to become a broadcast partner of the Masters Tournament and to provide fans additional hours of live coverage of this treasured event,” Jay Marine, head of Prime Video U.S. and Global Sports, said in the release. “We are humbled and proud to begin our relationship with Augusta National Golf Club, and we cannot wait to get started.”
Kapalua out in 2026
The PGA Tour said Tuesday it is leaving Kapalua Resort in Hawaii for its season opener after determining the drought and a water dispute that has left the golf course baked and brown from lack of irrigation cannot be ready to host The Sentry in January.
The PGA Tour had started every year on the Plantation Course at Kapalua Resort since 1999 except for 2001, when the season began in Australia and then went to Kapalua on the west side of Maui.
Still to be determined is where — or when — to move The Sentry, a $20 million signature event for all the PGA Tour winners in 2025 and the top 50 in the FedEx Cup standings. It was scheduled to be held Jan. 8-11.
The decision will not affect the Sony Open, another PGA Tour event in Hawaii that will be played the following week on Oahu.
Brian Rolapp, the CEO of PGA Tour Enterprises, spoke with Hawaii Gov. Josh Green while consulting with Wisconsin-based Sentry Insurance, Kapalua Resort and Maui County.
“The PGA Tour has determined the 2026 playing of The Sentry will not be contested at the Plantation Course at Kapalua due to ongoing drought conditions, water conservation requirements, agronomic conditions and logistical challenges,” the tour said in a release announcing the change.
Also considered were the logistics of vendors and shipping supplies to stage the tournament on an island in the middle of the Pacific.
Maui has been dealing with drought conditions that have affected 140,000 residents, and water conservation mandates are aimed at prioritizing needs of the island.
“We support the PGA Tour’s decision, given the drought conditions Maui is facing,” Green said in a release. “Protecting our water and supporting our communities come first. The Sentry has long showcased Maui’s beauty while giving back to local nonprofits.”
Kapalua officials said the tournament has a $50 million economic impact on the area.
Sentry, which has a title sponsorship deal through 2035, signed off on the decision given the circumstances facing the area.
“As we’ve said for years, Maui is a Sentry community not unlike our hometown of Stevens Point, Wisconsin, and that remains the case. Our communities are connected. We’ve built meaningful friendships throughout the island, and those relationships are bigger than the tournament,” Stephanie Smith, the chief marketing and brand officer who oversees Sentry’s involvement at Kapalua, said in a release.
At the heart of the water dispute are allegations that Maui Land & Pineapple, which operates the century-old system of ditches that provides irrigation water to Kapalua and its residents, has not kept up repairs that has affected water getting down from the mountain.
Tadashi Yanai, the Japanese billionaire who owns Kapalua and who founded the apparel brand Uniqlo, Kapalua homeowners and Hua Momona Farms filed a lawsuit Aug. 18 against MLP alleging it has not maintained the water delivery system.
“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.
MLP said it has made “certain repairs and improvements to the ditch system” as directed by the Commission on Water Resource Management and that all its actions are “consistent with the agreements between MLP and the golf courses.”
Kapalua Resort closed the Plantation Course on Sept. 2 for two months with hopes of saving it with what little irrigation it was allowed. There was a setback when the Hawaii Water Commissioner and MLP raised restrictions to ban all irrigation.
Kapalua announced Monday that the Bay Curse would close indefinitely in an effort to divert what little irrigation it was allowed to be used to save the Plantation.
In recent weeks, both sides have lobbed accusations at the other. MLP said in a release last week that Kapalua used more than 1 million gallon a day over two days, half the capacity of the wells, which led to the tighter restrictions.
TY Management — Yanai’s company — said Kapalua’s irrigation has central control systems and its water usage is based on science. A company spokesman said Kapalua has followed every mandate, even when MLP and the Hawaii Water Service unexpectedly imposed an irrigation ban as the course was preparing to take measures to save it.
Kapalua has been part of the PGA Tour since 1982, when it staged a popular unofficial event in November at the Bay Course and then the Plantation Course after it opened in 1991. It was the first design by Bill Coore and Ben Crenshaw.
The PGA Tour Champions has a season opener on the Big Island on Jan. 23-25, while the LPGA typically visits Hawaii in early October.
The next step is determing where or when to play the tournament, especially with the Sony Open the following week. Before it went to Kapalua in 1999, the tournament had been held for years at La Costa Resort in Carlsbad, California.
The PGA Tour has added Trump Doral near Miami to the 2026 schedule in April. A title sponsor for that tournament has not been announced.