Sony Open flips over to PGA Tour Champions event

HONOLULU (AP) — The golf season in Hawaii again starts at Waialae Country Club next year as a PGA Tour Champions event that will be called the Sony Championship.

The PGA Tour and Sony on Wednesday announced the change, which had been expected since April when the tour said it would not be returning to Maui for The Sentry, which since 1999 had preceded the Sony Open.

The Sony Championship will be Jan. 14-16 — ending on a Saturday — at Waialae, which had hosted a PGA Tour event since 1965. The prize fund will be $3 million. Past champions at Waialae now on the 50-and-older circuit include Ernie Els, Vijay Singh, Zach Johnson and Jerry Kelly.

It will be the sixth PGA Tour Champions course that once hosted a PGA Tour event.

"Sony has been an incredible PGA Tour partner since 1999, and we are looking forward to beginning this new era with the legends of the game competing on a truly iconic venue in Waialae Country Club,” said Miller Brady, president of PGA Tour Champions.

The transition keeps intact a charity component. Sony has contributed more than $27 million for Hawaii nonprofit organizations since it began as title sponsor in 1999. Hiroki Totoki, president and CEO of Sony Group Corp., said that was the “highest priority” in extending the partnership.

“We look forward to continuing our commitment to the state of Hawaii, and also to welcoming back many of the players and champions who have been such an important part of our history,” Totoki said. “We relish the opportunity to create new opportunities to deepen the connection between the tournament, our business community, and the people of Hawaii.”

IMG has been hired to run the tournament. The 78-man field at Sony is likely to be followed by the Mitsubishi Electric Championship at Hualalai on the Big Island. It has not been determined if those tournaments will swap spots for future years.

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FILE - Stewart Cink hits from the bunker on the 16th green during the final round of the Sony Open golf event, Sunday, Jan. 14, 2024, at Waialae Country Club in Honolulu. (AP Photo/Matt York,File)

The FBI has discounted some of the ransom notes that surfaced after the disappearance of Nancy Guthrie as nothing more than extortion attempts, but the agency said Wednesday it's still evaluating others that might be legitimate.

The FBI did not specify how many ransom notes have been received, other than saying “several.”

“This case continues to be investigated as a kidnapping for ransom case,” the FBI said in a statement.

The Pima County Sheriff's Department is also investigating the case. The department declined to comment on the notes Wednesday but said it's taking every tip in the investigation seriously.

Tucson TV station KOLD has said it received two notes, one demanding millions in Bitcoin in exchange for Guthrie’s return and another that said she had died. TMZ also received a note.

Guthrie is the mother of longtime “Today” show host Savannah Guthrie. Authorities believe she was kidnapped, abducted or otherwise taken against her will on Feb. 1. They found blood near the front doorstep of her home just outside Tucson, and the FBI later released surveillance videos showing a masked man on the porch that night.

Volunteers and search teams scoured the nearby desert terrain filled with cactuses, bushes and boulders in the weeks after she vanished. A volunteer group recently conducted a search for her body near the Arizona-Mexico border.

FILE - An aerial view of the home of Nancy Guthrie, the missing mother of "Today" show host Savannah Guthrie, in Tucson, Ariz., on Friday, March 6, 2026,. (AP Photo/Rebecca Noble,File)

FILE - A banner with notes from hundreds of well-wishers for Nancy Guthrie, the missing mother of "Today" show host Savannah Guthrie, is displayed outside of KVOA Newsroom on March 6, 2026, in Tucson, Ariz. (AP Photo/Rebecca Noble, File)