Quayle and Barty a new duo at New Zealand Open

Australia’s Anthony Quayle, the DP World Tour member, will team up with former Wimbledon and Australian Open women’s singles champion Ash Barty in the pro-am competition which runs alongside the NZ$2 million professional event co sanctioned by the Challenger PGA Tour of Australasia and Asian Tour.
 
It was the golf-loving Barty who initiated the new all-Queensland combination, calling the two-time Challenger PGA Tour of Australasia champion with the partnership proposal towards the end of last year.
 
“Excited to be playing. Beautiful place to visit, beautiful place to play golf,” Barty said after a practice round on Tuesday. “It’s nice to dust the cobwebs off the clubs.”
 
Quayle described his new partner as “an incredible athlete”.
 
“Each time I’ve asked her how her lead into this event’s been, she’s just like ‘oh, it’s just terrible. The game’s terrible. It’s just not good. I haven’t played enough’.
 
“I was watching her hit a few putts with a custom Wimbledon Odyssey putter and she holed about eight in a row and I’m like ‘I dunno what you’re talking about. You could be a bit of an over-achiever gear or something’.”
 
Married to a PGA Associate Professional, Garry Kissick, Barty will play off a handicap of four on the Coronet and Remarkables course which are used for the opening two rounds before the cut is made for both the professional and pro-am events for the weekend play which is held on a composite layout.
 
“She hits the ball well. She obviously putts beautifully so it should be a fun week,” Quayle said.
 
Third on last year’s Challenger PGA Tour of Australasia Order of Merit, Quayle comes to New Zealand as one of the prime contenders from across Tasman.
 
He’s had a solid start to his first season as a full-time DP World Tour player with top 10s at the BMW Australian PGA Championship and the Afrasia Bank Mauritius Open before Christmas.
 
Now his attention has switched back to his home tour and at No.24 in this season’s Order of Merit, the 31-year-old has come to Queenstown with No.1 on the Australasian Order of Merit as a prime goal.
 
“I got off to an okay start with the season before the DP Tour started and it’s put me in a position where if I win this week, or next week, it would probably go pretty close to wrapping that up, a couple of major starts and a few of the other great things that come with winning the money list here,” he said.
 
The Quayle-Barty combination will start their 2026 New Zealand Open campaign at 1.02pm on Thursday on the Coronet course.