It’s a time of year on the DP World Tour when a variety of agendas are in play. There are those at this week’s BMW PGA Championship who are simply trying to keep their cards for 2025. Others are shooting to make the top 70 on the Race to Dubai in order to gain entry to November’s lucrative playoff events in the Middle East. One or two even have ambitions to overhaul Rory McIlroy at the top of the season-long rankings. Perhaps the most intriguing of all, however, is the competition for the PGA Tour cards on offer to the 10 highest-ranked pros who do not already own playing rights across the pond.
As of this moment, the 10 best-placed are a diverse group headed by the newly-minted Irish Open champion, Denmark’s Rasmus Hojgaard. The others: South African Thriston Lawrence, two Swedes in Jesper Svensson and Sebastian Soderberg, another Dane, Niklas Norgaard, two Italians, Matteo Manassero and Guido Migliozzi, and two Frenchmen, Romain Langasque and, in 10th place, Frederic Lacroix.
Where it gets really interesting though is that the man currently occupying the 11th spot only 42.86 points behind Lacroix, is Laurie Canter. The 34-year-old Englishman is a man with an almost unique recent history in professional golf.
Having skipped a few events on the 2022 DP World Tour schedule as he pursued play on the LIV Golf circuit, the former South African and Spanish Amateur champion finished 130th on the Race to Dubai. Outside the all-exempt category, Canter to a category where his opportunities to tee-up on his home tour were clearly more limited. But that also meant, in weeks when he was outside the starting line-up on the DP World Tour, he was free to play elsewhere.
“I was lucky in a perverse way,” said Canter at the time.
Indeed, Canter continued to play on both the DP World Tour and the LIV Golf league until seven months ago. What was, so far at least, his final LIV event was Feb. 8-10 in Las Vegas. But everything really changed when Canter won his first DP World Tour title, the European Open, in early June. Suddenly, he was free to play every week on his home circuit and, perhaps just as crucially, he leapt into contention for one of the aforementioned PGA Tour cards.
“If I get one of the 10 cards, I’ll definitely be taking it up,” says Canter, who finished second in the 2021 BMW PGA Championship, one-shot shy of Billy Horschel’s winning score. “If you play well enough to get one of those spots, it is such an opportunity. I’ve talked with some of the guys who went there this year and it’s clear that some of them have made great starts and really leaned into it. Others have enjoyed the flexibility that gives them the chance to come back to Europe as and when they wish. There is plenty of time in a year to play both.”
In Canter’s case should he make the top 10, his allocation of time will be slightly different from the other nine qualifiers. His last LIV start in February will come back to haunt him to the extent that PGA Tour rules dictate that even though he has never previously had tour membership he must serve a 12-month suspension from all PGA Tour-sanctioned events.
“The PGA Tour has been really up-front with me,” Canter says. “They wrote to me before the Scottish Open. They confirmed that a year has to have passed before I can play in a PGA Tour-sanctioned event. So that will be February [2025]. I e-mailed back and told them what I thought of the policy. I haven’t been a member of the tour, but it remains a dream of mine to be so. Still, proactively banning people is a policy I can’t quite get my head round. If I was a member and broke a regulation, then I get it. But to be disciplined when you’re not a member does seem strange. But, having said that, to get the opportunity to play from February would be great.”
So it’s over with LIV?
“I tried to play there for two years, 2022 and 2023,” Canter says. “So it would be better to say that LIV is done with me more than I am done with them. But that happening allowed me to play in Europe. And now I’m a winner on the tour. The irony was that the decline in my status on LIV allowed me to play here again. I’m happy to be chasing my PGA Tour card and trying to play as well as I can. Like everyone I guess, I’m hoping for a collaborative end to all that is going on right now. We’re all sick of it. I hear that olive branches are being extended here and there, so let’s hope the end is near.”
One thing encouraging Canter is how well most of last year’s PGA Tour card winners have done in 2024. The long-time narrative that a large gap in standard exists between the rank-and-file pros on the PGA Tour and on the DP World Tour took a bit of a beating.
“The way the guys have played this year provides evidence that the gap is not that big,” Canter says. “Our best have always had skill levels that maybe don’t the credit they deserve. Bob [MacIntyre] and Matthieu [Pavon] both made the Tour Championship, which is an unbelievable achievement. A lot of world-class players didn’t do that. And lots of our other guys kept their cards on limited schedules. That’s all great to see and gives me confidence that I could so okay over there if I get the chance.”
Still, all of that is for the (possible) future. Right now, Canter has other, more important, things on his mind. Wife Anna is due to give birth to their second child this weekend.
“That’s my priority,” he says. “I’ll be having some time off after this event. I’ll play in only the Dunhill Links before the playoff events in the Middle East in November. So thoughts of the card can wait. Besides, it will come down to how well I play when I do play more than how many times I play.”
Main Image: Jan Kruger
