Laurie Canter went into last week’s South African Open believing he had missed out on the chance to make history at next week’s Players Championship.
“My manager had looked in the PGA Tour’s players handbook and it said that the cut-off point to get into the world top 50 and so qualify for Sawgrass was the week before,” Canter says. “I only realised there had been a misprint when the Telegraph contacted me.”
This was last Tuesday, two days before the tournament at Durban Country Club began. Canter, who won the Bahrain Open in January to put himself into contention, suddenly realised how much there was on the line. “I was 53rd in the rankings and needed to finish at least in the top four,” he said.
The 35-year-old from Bath spectacularly rose to the challenge, but was ultimately beaten in a one-hole play-off on Sunday, after a dramatic downpour cancelled the final day’s play and reduced the event to 54 holes.
“It was bittersweet, because I was gutted to lose, but also delighted to get into the top 50 and get into the Players and put myself in line to also get into the Masters,” he said. “And also Dylan [Naidoo, the South African] became the first player of colour to lift his national title, so it was nice to be part of that history.”
Canter is about to provide his own update to the record books. On the famous Stadium Course a week on Thursday, he is due to become the first golfer who has appeared on LIV Golf to play in a regular PGA Tour event, a notable moment in the ongoing split at the top of the professional male’s game since the Saudi-funded league was formed nearly three years ago.
Regular, but no normal week, as the $25 million Players is the Tour’s flagship event. Inevitably there will be plenty of interest in a personality who collected almost £4.5 million on the breakaway league.
“The way I’m looking is pretty simple. I’ve already played on eight or nine professional Tours around the world, so this will be my first chance to have a go on the PGA Tour,” he said after returning home to Somerset on Monday. “I do accept the LIV angle, and if anything, I hope this shows, in a very, very small way within this whole saga, that maybe players can come back together in a few different events, other than the majors.”
Canter was not granted any special favours or any help in his route to Ponte Vedra. Indeed, the message he received from Sawgrass HQ near the end of last season must have made the entry confirmed on Monday seem all the more sweet.
He was in contention to earn a PGA Tour card, via the DP World Tour’s controversial ‘10 Cards Initiative’ which enables the 10 top golfers on the European money list not already exempt to be granted playing rights on the American circuit. “But I got an email saying that even if I did, I’d be banned for the first few months of the season, because they ban players for a year after they last played on LIV,” he said.
When talking to Canter in November, he was clearly and understandably bemused that he was being “suspended from a Tour that I was not even a member of. I think my exact email back was: ‘The policy is absurd. It remains a dream to play on the PGA Tour one day. Best regards, Laurie.’”
That was four months ago and at that stage he was not in the world’s top 125 and despite his maiden win at the European Open which effectively secured his berth in this year’s Open at Portrush, he was on the outside peering in, as far as the biggest events were concerned.
Canter agonisingly missed out on his PGA Tour privileges in the final DP World Tour event, the second time in as many years that the end of year had brought him golfing despair. In December, 2023, he missed a five-footer on the last green at LIV Q-School that would have seen him become a LIV member proper and not just high up on the reserve list.
However, he overcame that disappointment to recover his European card – after LIV paved the way for his return after paying fines roughly totalling £700,000 – and in the last eight weeks he has done the bouncing-back trick again.
Such a rapid thrust up the rankings appeared implausible when he began this campaign at the Dubai Desert Classic, but he finished third ahead of Rory McIlroy that week and there followed the second win of his 14-year career, before Sunday’s close call on the celebrated layout overlooking the Blue Lagoon estuary.
A day on and Canter was recognising the significance of his runner-up placing. “When I knew that I could get into the Players with a good performance, I didn’t back away and I’m proud of that,” he said. “It’s massive for me to know that when the pressure was on I was able to produce the golf to get into the Players and give myself a shot at the Masters. I’m now comfortable enough to tell myself, ‘yeah, I’m a bit nervous, but this is what it’s all about.’”
It has been one of golf’s more remarkable journeys into the elite, although Canter does not feel his success story has been quite as ‘overnight’ as some observers might feel. “I do think that where my game was in 2020 and 2021 that I was trending towards this,” he said. “I was in the world’s top 100 and playing well.
“But then with LIV, I obviously wasn’t able to earn ranking points anymore and yeah, it was disruptive, in terms of my schedule changing – and my form went down. That certainly happened for a couple of years and one thing that this last year has shown me is that I am the type to benefit from having a plan. There were times in 2022 and 2023 when I wasn’t playing in every LIV event, didn’t have a card and was just playing wherever I could.”
Not that he regrets his time at LIV. “God, no, anything but,” he said. “The money I earned was life-changing. I am a pro, this is my job, and with two young children, I’ll fully admit that was incredibly important to me.
“But LIV was an amazing experience for other reasons. Playing in teams with players such as [Lee] Westwood, [Ian] Poulter, [Henrik Stenson] and others did nothing to harm my development. The opposite, in fact. I love being around golfers who have been there and done it – I soaked it up and asked them questions. It was good for me, good for my brain and has undoubtedly made me a better player.”
‘Every Masters hole is magic’
Canter believes he is a different competitor than before golf’s civil war. “There has been a definite mindset shift – before I was more about performance, but now I’m really leaning into winning and getting as many trophies as I can,” he said. “I had some really great results, few years back, but I didn’t win and I had chances to and actually put it in reverse. That really p----- me off.
Doors are opening apace and he acknowledges the opportunities that lie in behind. He need only stay in the top 50 for another four weeks to claim his place at Augusta and he is up to ninth on the Ryder Cup standings.
“I’m trying not to overstate it, but the Masters is the tournament I always watched on TV as a kid,” he said. “I know every hole is magic. I’ve turned down the chance to go there before, because I want to justify my spot and soak in all the majesty that way.
“And the Ryder Cup is the event everyone wants to play in. I don’t want to get ahead of myself, but getting into the big weeks is huge because I want to be exposed and find out how good I am. The Players is one of these. My coach [Mike Walker] has told me it’s is his favourite week of the year and Eddie [Pepperell, his close friend who finished third in 2019] said I’ll enjoy the test and he thinks it’ll suit me. Look, I know I’m playing pretty well, so let’s go there and see what I can do.”
And in these days of negotiation and the game healing from the scars, the boos are hardly likely to rain down on an affable character whose tale should truly inspire, are they? “I hope not, but I’ll tell you next week,” Canter said. “I don’t think I’ll get spat at.”
