Fifteen years ago Laurie Canter was plying his trade on the EuroPro Tour, sleeping on an airbed in corridors as a ragtag group of aspiring golfers bundled into three-bedroom apartments to try to make ends meet. Eventually, after one event in France, his trusty Vauxhall Mokka finally broke down, and Canter and Eddie Pepperell had to get a tow all the way back to Bath. They were some of the best days of his life, a hard grind but a “hell of a lot of fun”.
Canter had been to DP World Tour qualifying school ten times and nearly quit altogether after losing his card for a third consecutive year in 2019, but he kept coming back, convinced the putts would start to fall and the dream he was chasing would come good — even if it already felt like one.
“People say they don’t believe in luck,” he says. “I’m not trying to sound profound, but I feel unbelievably lucky in so many ways to earn a living playing golf. It’s absolutely wild, to be honest. I still have pinch-yourself [moments] sometimes. I turned pro in 2011. You can spend £40,000 on the mini tours and, if you play well, earn £15,000. Ten years of heading to Q-school, ten years of trying to become a pro before that. I’ve had some big lows. Lots of them, frankly. I’ve failed tons of times, but if you can stay involved and not get spat out by the system, you’ve still got a chance.”
Canter, left, will join the Majesticks team co-captained by Poulter, second left, and Westwood, right
ADRIAN DENNIS/AFP/GETTY IMAGES
Canter has reflected on that journey a lot over the past few weeks. After finally cracking the world’s top 100 in 2021 he spent two seasons on the Saudi Arabia-funded LIV Golf tour and earned close to £5million until he was jettisoned for a glitzier name. The 36-year-old rebounded with two victories on the DP World Tour in the space of nine months, made his debuts at the Players Championship and the Masters, and earned a PGA Tour card for 2026.
Every child on the putting green has imagined living that American dream, not least the late bloomer at Cumberwell Park Golf Club in Wiltshire who only took up the sport aged 13, but Canter surprised many by rejecting it to instead re-sign with LIV — he will play for the Majesticks team co-captained by Ian Poulter and Lee Westwood. He moved with his family from Surrey to Dubai earlier this year.
“The offer I had to go was brilliant,” he says, speaking for the first time about his decision to join LIV. “You’re weighing up all these things: where am I going to play my best golf and how do I feel I can do that and be compensated in the best way that I can, but it is also the lifestyle. The PGA Tour schedule is still probably the pinnacle of tour golf but, truthfully, I enjoy playing in Europe and I’m still passionate about playing events on the DP World Tour.
“If you’re going out to play on the PGA Tour and you can live in America, that’s obviously achievable but, at this point, I don’t want a life like that. My family is happy and settled where they are. I have two daughters [aged three and one]. Travelling back and forth to America 30 weeks of the year isn’t sustainable.”
There appears to have been a softening in the stance of the DP World Tour since Pelley stepped down as chief executive
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Canter was part of the original — and unsuccessful — legal battle against the DP World Tour to avoid sanctions for playing in LIV events. He served a seven-week suspension and LIV paid £725,000 in fines on his behalf in 2024 so he could remain eligible, but the hostility has palpably waned and the delay in addressing Jon Rahm and Tyrrell Hatton’s own appeals has prompted speculation about some form of agreement between the tours being reached.
“I think there is a big shift in the mood music about how players who’ve gone to LIV and come back are treated now, especially guys like Jon Rahm and Tyrrell [Hatton],” Canter says. “I think the traditional rhetoric in 2022 was fronted by Keith Pelley [the former DP World Tour chief executive], and he’s gone now.
“The tour has to do what’s best for itself, but as to whether I’m having my cake and eating it, I feel like I’m doing the opposite. I’m not leaving the DP World Tour. I’m playing LIV instead of playing on the PGA Tour. I will have to start paying fines myself [LIV will no longer subsidise them in 2026] and I’m not over the moon to drop £1million to stay a member, but I want to be involved.”
It would, though, hardly be fair to pin the animosity solely on Pelley — who has now been replaced by Guy Kinnings — and it occasionally became personal, too. Pepperell, a close friend since the heady days of the Mokka, was a fierce critic of LIV in its infancy and told David Walsh in 2023 that Canter’s decision to join the breakaway had strained their friendship. “It was really uncomfortable. There’s no other way to say it,” Canter says.
“If I’m talking about Ed, I probably feel lucky that our wives had a bit of a relationship. That can sometimes help soften stuff. In the course of your life, you’re going to fall out with a few of your mates, but usually if you just have a bit of space to chat and talk things through, you can see it from each other’s perspective.
“I don’t want to put words in Eddie’s mouth, but I think he felt quite protective of me. He wanted me to experience stuff within the game I hadn’t managed to do. With the benefit of hindsight, I can understand that, but I massively benefitted from that first experience on LIV. It made me a better player and the reception has been wholly different this time. Eddie sent me a really nice message. I’ve had guys on tour actually congratulate me on getting a LIV contract. I’m not saying everyone will be happy about it, but there’s been so much bad blood over the years, I think people understand it a lot more now.”
Pepperell, far right, was a guest at Canter’s wedding in 2021
The pair’s relationship was strained when Canter chose to join LIV in 2022
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Canter concedes he still has a “chip on his shoulder” over his performances on LIV the first time around. Although driving tips from Westwood and an impromptu chipping lesson from Phil Mickelson aided his development, his form was inconsistent and he was ultimately replaced by Anthony Kim, who had not played pro golf for 12 years. Speaking of the aforementioned lows, had Canter not missed a 5ft putt worth £1.5million on the final hole of LIV’s own qualifying school in December 2023, he would have retained his place in the league for 2024.
“I feel like I’m going in with something to prove, which is good, and I want to be a great member of the team. If you look at the sponsors, the traction, it’s all growing. It’s slow, but it’s coming,” he says.
The dream rarely pans out exactly — or as quickly — as expected. “I went to the Masters and I missed the cut,” Canter says with a laugh, but he is convinced the next five-year period, taking him past his 40th birthday, “will be the best golf I ever play in my life”.
“As you get a bit older, you realise a lot of people do jobs because it’s a job to earn money, but I still get a huge amount of purpose and drive from practising,” he says, blaming his bout of sentimentality on a recent virus. “It doesn’t feel like a chore or hard work because, in the grand scheme of things, I feel so lucky to just play golf.”