His last PGA Tour win was 14 years ago at the Barclays, while in 2010 he had top 10 finishes at the Masters and the Open Championship. Now 44, he\u2019s trying to find that magic form again, led by what he calls a \u201chealthy delusion\u201d.<\/p>\n
\u201cPart of it is just the experience of it all. I\u2019m from a really pretty small town in California and I don\u2019t feel like I was any sort of a phenom or anything. So I\u2019m still in awe of the places I get to see and go to play golf. One of it is just the experience of it all.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously the New Zealand Open, I think it\u2019s a historic event. It\u2019s been around for a while and it\u2019d be fun to play. And then lastly, I think hopefully this is the correct term, but I think a lot of athletes have a bit of healthy delusion. Just I still think I got some good stuff left and obviously when you have a scorecard in your hand and it counts and you\u2019re playing against good players on good golf courses, that\u2019s when you measure yourself. So I\u2019d like to measure myself and haven\u2019t been getting a load of starts around here. So once they agreed to give me a slot, it was a no-brainer to head down.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019d like to do as well as I could, but I have great respect for everybody, all the players down there. So come down and have a good time and hopefully do well.\u201d<\/p>\n
And why not? Justin Rose is two years older than Watney and ranked fourth in the world, while Adam Scott is a regular contender on the PGA Tour at 45.<\/p>\n
And if there was ever proof that it\u2019s never too late for a comeback in golf, it was Anthony Kim\u2019s victory at the LIV Golf Adelaide event last weekend when, at 42, he stormed past the major winners John Rahm and Bryson DeChambeau in the final group.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat was incredible. I haven\u2019t seen or spoken to him for quite a while, but I think we were fairly friendly when he was out,\u201d Watney said.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have mixed feelings only because, I say that meaning it was great to see, it was exciting, I was excited for him. He\u2019s been on a bit of a journey, I guess. And at the same time I wasn\u2019t completely shocked just because, he was really good. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe was really good for a while … think he reached the top 10 in the world and Ryder Cup, played amazing in the Ryder Cup and all the things. So I was happy for him and I wasn\u2019t completely shocked to see it just because going against those two guys … that\u2019s where he thrived was to be in the mix. So super happy for him. And yeah, I guess that just adds to the delusion on let\u2019s keep going and there\u2019s still some really good stuff there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Watney will be joined by fellow PGA Tour winners Kevin Na and Kyle Stanley at Millbrook as they look to break the American drought – the last US winner being Bobby Gates in 2010.<\/p>\n
Golf has changed since Watney turned professional in 2003, with distance being a key factor in today\u2019s game. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think physically I\u2019ve held up pretty well. So much of the game is power now. I have enough to compete. I know I\u2019m not the longest or probably in the top 10%, but enough to play well. I think there is time, although it is obviously limited just with the nature of life, I suppose. But I think there\u2019s still time to do some good stuff.\u201d<\/p>\n
The 2026 New Zealand Open will be played across Millbrook Resort\u2019s iconic Coronet and Remarkables courses, between February 26 and March 1. The ISPS HANDA Japan-Australasia Championship begins March 5 in a historic first-time co-sanctioned event between the Challenger PGA Tour of Australasia and the Japan Golf Tour.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"His last PGA Tour win was 14 years ago at the Barclays, while in 2010 he had top…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":292176,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[5162,22773,124,161783,2740,18126,29529,108722,78,117,111,43,139,6933,69,5493,415,1527,9643,208,1315,159034,10508,377,80],"class_list":{"0":"post-292175","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-chasing","9":"tag-comeback","10":"tag-could","11":"tag-fivetime","12":"tag-former","13":"tag-golf","14":"tag-hoping","15":"tag-ignite","16":"tag-in","17":"tag-new","18":"tag-new-zealand","19":"tag-news","20":"tag-newzealand","21":"tag-nick","22":"tag-nz","23":"tag-open","24":"tag-prime","25":"tag-return","26":"tag-spark","27":"tag-tour","28":"tag-trip","29":"tag-watney","30":"tag-winner","31":"tag-world","32":"tag-zealand"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292175","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=292175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/292175\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/292176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=292175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=292175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=292175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}