It's 5:30 a.m. on Maui and the sun still hasn't risen, but DTN meteorologist Wade Stettner is on site in Kapalua and will be there to assess the situation.
Few other officials, volunteers or players are on the course, but Stettner doesn't mind that. This early morning hour is probably the most important moment of his day.
his job is PGA Tour and Official Weather Forecast This is a critical deliverable for everyone involved with the Sentry, from players and caddies to broadcasters, volunteers and fans. The tour then broadcasts this prediction to all participants online, on social media feeds, and of course on-site. Stettner will then release an afternoon update later in the day or if the forecast changes. He constantly checks conditions and uploads data as the day progresses so he can continue playing.
Friday's opening pairings began at 7:45 a.m. local time, more than two hours after Stettner arrived on the course, but like everyone else at the venue, the weather reared its ugly head. I need to know whether or not. If that happens, or if a thunderstorm suddenly develops, Stettner will have no choice but to rally tournament officials, PGA Tour judges and NBC producers on concerns that Mother Nature may present. . This group then decides whether to change tee times or suspend play entirely. It requires a lot of logistics and often involves removing players, staff and fans from the track in emergency vans and buses. Safety is our top priority.
The effects of a severe storm extend far beyond its course. It also influences airtime, which generates a significant portion of the tour's revenue.
Flashback to January 2005, when the PGA Tour's meteorology contract began with DTN. Stettner is working on his first event on tour at Kapalua, and it's a big one. At the time, for sponsorship reasons, the tournament was stylized as the Mercedes Championship, but Kapalua was still the venue. The field is made up only of the previous year's winners, meaning only the best players started the season on Maui.
On Saturday night, Vijay Singh held a 54-hole lead and hoped Ernie Els, Tiger Woods and Stuart Appleby would chase him. Meanwhile, Stettner had a big decision to make. His forecast called for severe weather Sunday afternoon, which would affect everything from plays to broadcasts. So, after providing his report to the Tour, officials decided to move up the tee time to the morning.
However, there was just one problem.
Mother Nature arrived early and blanketed Kapalua with a storm early that Sunday morning, completely overturning Stettner's predictions.
“Oh my god,” Stettner thought to himself. “How could this be? We have to do better.”
Fortunately for him, the storm subsided that afternoon and the tour returned to its original final round tee times. Television broadcasts were also unaffected, allowing fans in the East to watch during prime time. Strong winds continued to cause havoc that day, but Applebee's won for the second year in a row, and the crisis was averted.
But in Stettner's defense, technology has come a long way since then.
“Back in 2005, I was the only source of weather information on the golf course,” Stettner explained to SB Nation.
“Back then, there was very little internet and certainly no smartphones. But now we have all these tools and data at our fingertips. The apps are constantly being enhanced, so you can see things like radar, distance, and everything else. It is used to support our work and make it easier to predict the weather because it can measure small nuances in the weather.”
Because of this, his role has also changed somewhat since then.
Advances in technology have allowed him to predict the weather more accurately and plan advanced forecasts two to three days in advance. Twenty years ago, Stettner could only warn tours about approaching weather. That helps explain his final round accident, but it wasn't actually an accident at all.
“We know exactly what's going to happen the day before, and we know the trigger points for the tour, so we can plan to get through the next day more easily,” Stettner said. Explained further.
“Ten years from now, if you have very accurate predictions and a lot of confidence in their support, you might be able to do it in three or four days. In this way, numerical weather forecasting will become a great When artificial intelligence comes in and enhances it, the accuracy increases dramatically, especially for five-day monitoring.”
Considering how strong meteorology will be in 2025, this is a remarkable declaration. But with that in mind, it's important to have a meteorologist on-site at every PGA Tour event.
“Events like this that draw large crowds require meteorologists on-site, because unexpected weather can occur and safety must always be considered when making decisions,” Stettner said. Ta.
“But remember, you don't want to have a false alarm and cancel your golf tournament when the sun isn't out all day.”
DTN also outsources its weather teams to the Korn Ferry Tour, LPGA, and Champions Tour. Overall, the company had a presence at 171 professional golf events in 2024, including the PGA Championship and the Presidents Cup in Montreal. of notre dame cathedral The Athletic Department has DTN meteorologists on hand for every home football game in South Bend, Indiana, proving that their work extends far beyond golf.
As for Stettner, he lives in Seattle but travels about 26 weeks out of the year. After this week's tournament on Maui, he will fly to Honolulu for the Sony Open in Hawaii next week. And, unlike Thursday and Friday, the weather forecast for this weekend is for calm weather with not as much wind, so Coach Stettner has already given his Wairae Country Club players an idea of what the weather will be like next week. We are working on how to make an impact.
“The weather is expected to be bad next week, so I'm assisting the senior officials and the agronomy team,” Stettner said of the Sony Open in Hawaii.
“So they're already in the pre-planning stages of what they're going to do with the golf course, getting it into tournament shape and preparing for the weather that's expected next week.”
Stettner will then jet across the Atlantic to Morocco for the second round of the Champions Tour season in February. It's a busy job for the longtime weather forecaster, but it's worth it because every tournament requires an expert on the ground.
“Experiencing the weather we predict makes us better meteorologists,” Stettner added.
“And we can also see the results of decisions made on the ground.”
Metrology is a small piece of the larger puzzle that is the weekly event on the PGA Tour. But this is perhaps the most important part, because without it, safety and security are lost, while danger and danger loom.
Jack Mirko is a golf staff writer for SB Nation's Playing Through. Follow him on X @jack_milko.
