Watney echoed those sentiments, excited by the setting and the chance to test his game in New Zealand.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis will be my first trip to Queenstown, and everything I\u2019ve seen and heard about it looks amazing,\u201d said Watney. \u201cThe New Zealand Open has a great reputation, and I\u2019m excited to be part of it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Kyle Stanley added his enthusiasm, saying, \u201cThis event has been on my radar for some time, and I am extremely grateful that the tournament has invited me along. New Zealand is a country I have been looking forward to returning to, having played in the NZPGA Championship at Clearwater back in 2010.<\/p>\n
Tournament director Michael Glading said securing Na, Stanley and Watney further strengthened an already strong international field.<\/p>\n
\u201cTo have three proven PGA Tour winners of this calibre commit to the New Zealand Open is fantastic for the tournament.<\/p>\n
\u201cKevin, Kyle and Nick bring immense experience, competitiveness and global profile, and they add real depth and quality to the field.<\/p>\n
\u201cKevin\u2019s exploits on both the LIV and PGA tours are well known to many, Kyle is a two-time PGA Tour winner, and of course, Nick is a former top 10 player in the world; we\u2019re thrilled to welcome them all to Queenstown.\u201d<\/p>\n
All three players will maximise their visit by playing in one of the other New Zealand events this month, with Stanley teeing it up in the Quinovic NZPGA Championship at Paraparaumu this week, and both Watney and Na moving to Auckland after the New Zealand Open to compete in the new ISPS HANDA Japan-Australasia Championship event at Royal Auckland early March.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Watney echoed those sentiments, excited by the setting and the chance to test his game in New Zealand.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":285621,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[142400,16745,25429,806,31579,22771,19345,14724,33443,19755,61092,44012,142401,13210,117,111,43,139,1536,6933,69,5493,10112,15225,20930,531,116991,2737,208,16559,159034,686,1533,16566,102,80],"class_list":{"0":"post-285620","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-105th","9":"tag-adding","10":"tag-announce","11":"tag-as","12":"tag-boosted","13":"tag-excited","14":"tag-field","15":"tag-further","16":"tag-heading","17":"tag-join","18":"tag-kevin","19":"tag-kyle","20":"tag-millbrook","21":"tag-na","22":"tag-new","23":"tag-new-zealand","24":"tag-news","25":"tag-newzealand","26":"tag-next","27":"tag-nick","28":"tag-nz","29":"tag-open","30":"tag-power","31":"tag-presented","32":"tag-queenstown","33":"tag-resort","34":"tag-stanley","35":"tag-star","36":"tag-tour","37":"tag-tournament","38":"tag-watney","39":"tag-week","40":"tag-will","41":"tag-winners","42":"tag-with","43":"tag-zealand"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285620","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=285620"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/285620\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/285621"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=285620"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=285620"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=285620"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}