Why PGA Tour events have on-site meteorologists at every event, including The Sentry
SB Nation spoke with a PGA Tour meteorologist on the ground in Maui, who provided incredible insight into tournament operations.
It’s 5:30 a.m. in Maui, and the sun has not even risen yet, but DTN Meteorologist Wade Stettner is on property at Kapalua and is there to assess the conditions.
Barely any other official, volunteer, or player has made their way to the course, but that does not bother Stettner. This early morning hour is perhaps the most crucial moment of his day.
His job is to provide the PGA Tour with an official weather forecast by 6:00 a.m., an all-important deliverable for everyone involved with The Sentry, from players and caddies to broadcasters, volunteers, and fans alike. The tour then distributes this forecast online, to its social media feeds, and, of course, to every participant in the field. Stettner then releases an afternoon update later in the day or if the forecast changes at any time. He is constantly checking the conditions and uploading data as the day wears on, making sure play can continue.
Friday’s opening pairing began at 7:45 a.m. local time, more than two hours after Stettner arrived at the course, but they, like everyone else on the property, need to know if inclement weather would rear its ugly head. If so — or if a pop-up thundershower arises out of nowhere — Stettner has no choice but to rally Tournament Officials, PGA Tour Referees, and NBC Producers about the pending issues Mother Nature could present. This group then decides whether to move tee times around or suspend play altogether. That involves plenty of logistics, which often includes getting players, personnel, and fans off the course via emergency vans and buses. Safety is the number one priority.
The impact of severe storms reaches far beyond the course. They also influence broadcast times, which is how the tour generates a significant portion of its revenue.
Flashback to January 2005, when the PGA Tour’s meteorology contract began with DTN. Stettner is at Kapalua, working his first event for the tour and it’s a big one. At the time, for sponsorship reasons, this tournament was stylized as the Mercedes Championships, but Kapalua still played host. The field consisted only of winners from the previous year, meaning only the best of the best began their season in Maui.
On Saturday night, Vijay Singh held the 54-hole lead while Ernie Els, Tiger Woods, and Stuart Appleby hoped to chase him down. Stettner, meanwhile, had quite a decision on his hands. His forecast called for severe weather on Sunday afternoon, impacting everything from the play to the broadcast. So, after providing the tour with his report, officials decided to move up tee times to the morning.
There was only one problem, though.
Mother Nature arrived early and blanketed Kapalua with storms early that Sunday, thus completely upending Stettner’s forecast.
“Oh my God,” Stettner thought to himself. “How could this be? I have to do better.”
Luckily for him, the storms subsided that afternoon, and the tour reverted to its original final round tee times. The television broadcast was not impacted, either, ensuring prime-time viewing for fans back east. The crisis was averted, although windy conditions still wreaked havoc that day, as Appleby emerged victorious for the second year in a row.
But in Stettner’s defense, technology has come a long way since then.
“Back in ‘05, I was the only source of weather on the golf course,” Stettner explained to SB Nation.
“There was very little internet weather back then, and there were obviously no smartphones. But now you have all these tools and data. Apps keep getting enhanced, so you can measure radar, distances, and all these little nuances that we use to help us do our job and make it easier to predict the weather.”
Because of this, his role has shifted somewhat since then too.
Technological advancements have allowed him to predict the weather better and plan advanced forecasts two to three days in advance. Twenty years ago, Stettner could only alert the tour for approaching weather, which could arrive anytime. That helps explain his final-round mishap then — although it was not really a mishap whatsoever.
“We have a pretty good idea exactly what’s going to happen a day in advance, and we know the trigger points of the tour, so we can plan to make sure we get through the upcoming day a lot easier,” Stettner explained further.
“Ten years from now, we might be able to do that three or four days out when you have a very accurate forecast and a lot of confidence behind it. That’s how good numerical weather predictions have become. As Artificial Intelligence gets involved and enhances it further, the accuracy will improve dramatically, especially in those five days looking out.”
That’s a remarkable proclamation, considering how strong meteorology is in 2025. But with that in mind, having meteorologists on the ground at every PGA Tour event is crucial.
“We need a meteorologist on-site at these events where you have large galleries of people because you do have unexpected weather that happens, and you have to make those decisions always in the interest of safety,” Stettner said.
“But you must remember, you don’t want to have a false alarm and shut a golf tournament down when the sun’s going to stay out for the day.”
DTN outsources its meteorology teams to the Korn Ferry Tour, LPGA, and Champions Tour as well. Overall, the company had a presence at 171 professional golf events in 2024, including the PGA Championship and the Presidents Cup in Montreal. The Notre Dame Athletic Department also has a DTN meteorologist at every one of their home football games in South Bend, Indiana, proof that their work reaches far beyond golf.
As for Stettner, he lives in Seattle but is on the road for roughly 26 weeks out of the year. After this week’s tournament in Maui, he will bounce over to Honolulu for next week’s Sony Open in Hawaii. And since this weekend’s conditions call for a benign forecast with not too much wind — unlike Thursday and Friday — Stettner is already working on how the weather will impact the players at Wailae Country Club next week.
“I’ve been helping the advanced officials and the agronomy team there because we are expecting weather next week,” Stettner said of the Sony Open in Hawaii.
“So they’re already in the pre-planning stages for what they want to do with the golf course, and to get it in tournament shape and to be ready for the weather that’s expected coming into next week.”
After that, Stettner will jet across the Atlantic to Morocco for the second event of the Champions Tour’s season in February. It’s a busy stretch for the long-time meteorologist, but it’s all worthwhile because every tournament needs experts on site.
“It makes us better meteorologists when we experience the weather we forecast,” Stettner added.
“And we get to see the results of the decisions being made on the grounds as well.”
Meterology is a small piece to the big puzzle that is a PGA Tour event week-in and week-out. But it’s perhaps the most important piece, because without it, danger and peril loom while safety and security lose.
Jack Milko is a golf staff writer for SB Nation’s Playing Through. Follow him on X @jack_milko.