A top performance at the national bowls championships in Auckland could see him back in the Black Jacks squad.
National selection convener and New Zealand team coach Dave Edwards said the New Zealand selectors will review the Black Jacks 10-man squad after the championships.
Watt was named in the Black Jacks elite squad in 2008 after winning the Hong Kong singles and performing with credit for the New Zealand development team against Australia.
He was named in the wider squad for the New Delhi Commonwealth Games and was being targeted for World Bowls in 2012.
But a loss of form and an inability to win any major tournaments saw him dropped from the elite squad this year.
He has the opportunity to restore his reputation when he competes in the singles and pairs at the New Zealand championships that start in Auckland today.
He is teamed in the pairs with club mate Kelvin Budge.
They reached the last 32 in the Australian open pairs last season. The tournament has 4500 bowlers competing.
Watt, an apprentice engineer for Atmos, has won four Bowls Dunedin titles and Budge has three.
Watt made a breakthrough on the international scene by winning the Hong Kong Classic singles at the end of 2007. He made his debut for the New Zealand development team against Scotland in 2006 and was also runner-up in the New Zealand under-19 singles that year.
The winner of the New Zealand open singles title used to gain automatic selection in the Black Jacks for World Bowls or Commonwealth Games.
But that system changed when the Bowls New Zealand chief executive Kerry Clark was convener of the selection panel and team coach.
But the singles winner still puts himself into the mind of the selectors who will give him the opportunity to gain international experience in less important events.
Dunedin's Ian Dickison was groomed for the top after winning the national pairs title with his brother Phil in 1981 and the singles title in 1985.
It paid dividends for Dickison, who won the Commonwealth Games singles title in Edinburgh in 1986 and the World Bowls triples title in Auckland two years later.
Sue Hodges (Outram) has the chance to lift herself into the Black Jacks 10-strong women's squad with top performances in Auckland.
Hodges is playing in all three disciplines - singles, pairs and fours.
She is teamed with Vicki Robinson (North East Valley) in the pairs and they are joined by Wellington bowlers Dale Lang and Hayley May in the fours.
Hodges, a member of the New Zealand Development squad that is preparing for World Bowls in 2012, is the best woman bowler in the Dunedin Centre. She has won eight centre titles.
Hodges (nee Phillips), who is employed in the Dunedin office of Work and Income, grew up in Dunedin and was educated at Macandrew Intermediate and Queen's High School.
She started playing bowls for fun 16 years ago but has now become serious about the sport and has her sights set on being a member of the Black Jacks for Commonwealth Games and World Bowls.
