‘Off-the-charts success’: Sentry, PGA Tour extend Tournament of Champions sponsorship deal

STEVENS POINT, Wisc. – Pete McPartland calls Sentry Insurance’s decision to align itself with the PGA Tour “one of the smartest decisions we’ve ever made.”

It has been a match made in golf paradise – Maui, Hawaii – and that partnership is going to last well into the future.

The PGA Tour and Sentry announced Tuesday that the Stevens Point-based insurance company, which has been title sponsor of the Sentry Tournament of Champions since 2018, has extended the sponsorship through 2035.

The Sentry Tournament of Champions annually kicks off the calendar year on the PGA Tour and next year’s event will mark Maui’s 25th year hosting on The Plantation Course at Kapalua. Since the event moved to Maui in 1999, the Sentry Tournament of Champions has generated more than $8 million for local community charities.

The 2023 tournament is Jan. 5 to 8 and will feature a purse of $15 million, up from $8.2 million in 2022.

“We thought we were doing the right thing from a branding standpoint, but we didn’t know for sure how right that decision would prove to be,” McPartland, Sentry’s chairman of the board, president and CEO, said of partnering with the PGA Tour to sponsor the event. “But statistically, if you look at all the measurables in terms of measuring brand success, it’s been off-the-charts success for us.”

The original agreement in 2018 was the first foray into major sports sponsorship for Sentry, which has been involved with golf since 1982 when it built SentryWorld — Wisconsin’s first destination golf facility — at its headquarters in Stevens Point.

More than just sponsoring a golf tournament, Sentry has embraced the Maui community and extended community outreach beyond tournament week. It includes creating a scholarship program for graduates of Maui public schools, providing support to the Maui United Way for COVID-19 pandemic relief efforts and helping to address childhood hunger in Maui County.

“It means a tremendous amount to us and the relationship we have on Maui, with the people of Maui, transcends what one would have expected and even we would have expected through a golf tournament sponsorship,” McPartland said. “We have become at one with the island of Maui. We view Maui as important to us as any city we have offices in or have people in, and we commit to it no differently.”

McPartland said the relationship Sentry has built with PGA Tour Commissioner Jay Monahan and his management team since they first started talking about a partnership in 2017 made the extension logical for both sides, even as professional golf is in flux because the emergence of LIV Golf.

“We kind of know each other well and just have a lot of confidence in them and a lot of trust in them and we enjoy working with them,” McPartland said. “The trust and quality relationship with the PGA Tour leadership helps make this extension an even easier decision than it otherwise would have.”

Starting in 2024, when the PGA Tour moves away from a wrap-around season and returns to a calendar-year season, the Sentry Tournament of Champions will be the first event of each new golf season. McPartland said Sentry will benefit from that added exposure.

“You just think about opening day of baseball, the first day of the college football season or the NFL season. Opening day of the PGA golf season coming during the holidays and with the aesthetics of Maui and pent-up demand that will come with having a lack of golf on TV the last couple months of the year and that being the first tournament of the season, really elevates this tournament to a level that it had never perceived would happen,” he said. “We are very confident that the PGA Tour will thrive with this lineup and we want to be in that position as the first tournament of the season as far in the future as the eye can see.”

In announcing the extension, Monahan praised Sentry for elevating the status of the Tournament of Champions.

“Kicking off the PGA Tour season at the Sentry Tournament of Champions starting in 2024 will further elevate the event as the world of golf will be squarely focused on Maui that week. Our thanks to Pete McPartland and his team at Sentry for their partnership, loyalty and trust in the PGA Tour,” Monahan said.

As for the golf landscape in Wisconsin, McPartland said Sentry is committed to bringing more competitive tournaments to central Wisconsin. SentryWorld hosted the 2019 U.S. Girls Junior Championship and will be the site of the U.S. Senior Open in 2023.

SentryWorld has undergone extensive renovation in recent years to not only prepare for hosting the U.S. Senior Open but to also, in McPartland’s words, maximize the golf course’s potential.

“We want to be second to none,” McPartland said. “We’re doing incredible things with the maintenance of the golf course and (general manager) Mike James has a mission to look at competitive golf opportunities for us. We’re currently in the process of considering the kind of things we might want to pursue. I wouldn’t use the words ‘the sky is the limit.’ There’s a limit to what kinds of things SentryWorld can rationally aspire to, but maximizing and continuing to have the best competitive events we can at this course is very much a goal.”

Contact Mike Sherry at msherry@postcrescent.com. Follow him on Twitter @MikeSherry14.