KAPALUA, Maui >> A year ago when PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan sat down with a collection of reporters from across the land things weren’t looking too good for the two Hawaii-based events.

The Tournament of Champions on Maui didn’t have a title sponsor and the Sony Open in Hawaii was in its last year with the Japanese-based company, leaving golf fans in the island chain wondering if the tour would go the same way as the National Football League’s Pro Bowl — someplace else.

But in August, the Sentry insurance company signed on the five-year dotted line to join the tour as a sponsor and four months later, Sony Corp. did the same at Waialae Country Club, something Monahan believed would happen and said as much during a 45-minute wide-ranging interview.

“I look at our friends here,” Monahan said. “We were sitting in the room last year and there was uncertainty as to who the future sponsor of this tournament was going to be and what the future of the Sony Open was. I think I said then that I wasn’t worried about it, I’m not exactly certain how we’re going to do it, but we’re going to figure it out as a priority. We’ve been playing here for a long time and we’re going to be playing here for a long time and we feel really good about the fact that we don’t have to answer that question, at least, for the foreseeable future.”

The fruition of his efforts paid off handsomely as the top five players in the world and seven of the top 10 opted to begin their 2018 campaigns here on Maui. More than half of this winners-only field will be at the Sony Open this week, including world No. 2 Jordan Spieth and world No. 3 and defending champion Justin Thomas.

These days, the talk of the tour is the 2018-19 schedule and the pending changes that will take place, including moving the Players Championship from May to the third week in March and the PGA Championship from August to May. It’s also likely that the FedEx Cup playoffs will be reduced from four to three as the event in Boston is likely done after this year. The two tournaments here, they will remain in place to start the calendar year in January.

“I think the schedule that you see in the autumn and into the winter will continue to be what it is,” Monahan said. “I honestly don’t think we’re in any different position than we were a year ago. I fully expected that we would find sponsors and these two events would be in an important position that they are in.

“But having five-year commitments allows both organizations to be able to plan, to put their teams in place, and that you have to know that if you’re running the tournament, working in this community, to know you’ve got at least five more years, I think that gives you a lot of flexibility to really grow the tournament, and to do some things differently as opposed to when you’re dealing with uncertainty, which would have been the situation we were in a year ago.”

As for having Sentry join the tour family, Monahan had nothing but positives in describing the Wisconsin-based insurance company.

“I think it’s extremely positive — and it’s not just they’re five years — to see Sentry, a Fortune 50 insurance company, they’re great people and in their own way, they bring that Midwestern flair to Hawaii,” Monahan said. “They have that same level of happiness and they’re just really thrilled to be here. And it’s an important investment for them because they’re reintroducing, they’re rebranding, and they’re trying to build stronger and deeper relationships and that’s what this marketplace does. You get people here and it’s a perfect formula.”