{"id":307828,"date":"2026-03-01T10:24:14","date_gmt":"2026-03-01T10:24:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/307828\/"},"modified":"2026-03-01T10:24:14","modified_gmt":"2026-03-01T10:24:14","slug":"golf-kiwi-daniel-hillier-wins-105th-new-zealand-open","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/307828\/","title":{"rendered":"Golf: Kiwi Daniel Hillier wins 105th New Zealand Open"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Daniel<\/p>\n

\nDaniel Hillier celebrates his win at the New Zealand Open.
\nPhoto: Chris Symes \/ www.photosport.nz\n<\/p>\n

Kiwi golfer Daniel Hillier has won the NZ Open for the first time, finishing two shots clear of Australian Lucas Herbert.<\/p>\n

The 27-year-old Wellingtonian handled gusty and cool conditions at Arrowtown’s Millbrook Resort, near Queenstown, to secure the title.<\/p>\n

\"Daniel<\/p>\n

\nHillier sets up for a putt at the Millbrook Resort.
\nPhoto: www.photosport.nz\n<\/p>\n

Hillier led by one shot heading into Sunday’s final round, finishing at 22-under par for the tournament.<\/p>\n

He takes home prizemoney of NZ$360,000 and becomes the first New Zealander since Michael Hendry in 2017 to lift the silverware.<\/p>\n

Hillier said winning the New Zealand Open capped an incredible week of celebration.<\/p>\n

“Oh mate, that is the second-best day of my life, behind my wedding last week,” he told SkySport.<\/p>\n

“It’s a lot more stressful coming down the stretch there, but this has just been the absolute best week of my life.<\/p>\n

“To break the Kiwi drought is pretty special and to do it in front of my family, all my friends, my wife… I’ve been dreaming this for a long time and I knew I had the game to do it.<\/p>\n

“It was a matter of not getting ahead of myself and I’m pretty proud.”<\/p>\n

LIV golfer Herbert was second at 20-under. New Zealand’s Kerry Mountcastle finished in a tie for third, with Japan’s Tomoyo Ikemura, on 17-under.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Daniel Hillier celebrates his win at the New Zealand Open. Photo: Chris Symes \/ www.photosport.nz Kiwi golfer Daniel…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":307829,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[48,47,111,43,139,69,49,46,44,45],"class_list":{"0":"post-307828","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-zealand","8":"tag-audio","9":"tag-current-affairs","10":"tag-new-zealand","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-newzealand","13":"tag-nz","14":"tag-podcasts","15":"tag-public-radio","16":"tag-radio-new-zealand","17":"tag-rnz"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307828","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=307828"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/307828\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/307829"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=307828"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=307828"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=307828"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}