Top Bermuda professional Michael Sims tees it up Down Under on Thursday when he plays in the Michael Hill New Zealand Open at the Hills Golf Club in Arrowtown in the South Island.

The New Zealand Open is the first event on the Nationwide Tour and has a purse of $600,000.

Sims, who makes his home in Sea Island, Georgia, was in Bermuda over the Christmas holidays and last year was his best ever on the Nationwide Tour.

Sims played in 24 Nationwide tournaments in 2009 and made 13 cuts. He had two top 10 finishes, six top 25 finishes and pocketed $96,927.

But at the end of the season, he finished in an agonising 61st place on the tour – only one spot out of getting his full Nationwide card for 2010. The reason for that was his disappointing final round at the Miccosukee Championships which was the final regular event on the tour.

This week Sims is in a field of 78 players which include the likes of Jason Gore from the US who won on the PGA Tour at the 84 Lumber Classic. He just failed to hold on to his PGA Tour card last year.

Gore leads a strong contingent from the US at the New Zealand Open. Other Americans include Ken Duke who had five top 10 finishes on the PGA Tour in 2008 and Bubba Dickerson.

It was Dickerson who stopped Sims' glorious march in the US Amateur Golf Championships in 2001 when the Bermudian was playing for the University of Rhode Island.

Sims came up against the big hitting Dickerson in the semi-finals at the East Lakes Country Club, near Atlanta, Georgia and eventually lost to the American.

Other top players from the US who will be competing in New Zealand this week are Scott Dunlap, three time Nationwide Tour winner Skip Kendall and Casey Wittenburg who failed to keep his PGA Tour card last year.

New Zealand Open promoter Bob Tuohy said: "It is possible the strongest field of Americans that we have attracted to the tournament."