DUBAI – It was just a tease in March, when Laurie Canter made his Players Championship debut and earned the customary set of Tiffany cufflinks from PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan. Now, eight months later, it’s much more realistic that Canter will become the first former LIV player to play the entire PGA Tour.
As one of the top 10 non-exempt players in the Race to Dubai – which scored points on Sunday – Canter will gain full status on the PGA Tour next season, an award he would never have considered three years ago when he played a full season on his rival tour.
It was June 9, 2022, when Canter stepped up as a founding member of Cleeks GC. A few minutes after the first LIV tee shots, Monahan sent a memo to the golf world: all competitors on the rival tour were banned from playing on the PGA Tour. From then on, all LIV events were considered “unsanctioned” tournaments, and anyone playing in them would have to wait a full year before trying to get a spot in a PGA Tour-sanctioned event.
That was true even for non-Tour members like Canter, who found themselves in an unwanted middle ground of professional golf’s Cold War. He played a full season in 2022 and then served as a LIV wildcard in 2023. After two events in early 2024, he was replaced by LIV’s next big thing, Anthony Kim.
Canter didn’t take it personally, but his professional golf options were limited. He took his financial security – after earning a whopping $5.6 million in 20 LIV events – and returned to the DP World Tour just in time to play the best golf of his life.
Canter won the European Open in June 2024 and then the Bahrain Championship in March 2025, earning just enough world rankings points to break into the Players Championship field, where he earned those special cufflinks from Monahan.
Making his debut at TPC Sawgrass, Canter was the center of attention during the first day of interviews before ultimately missing the cut. Since then, his year has been feast or famine, with just enough feast to reach the DP World Tour Championship, challenge for the title and get one of those ten PGA Tour cards for 2026.
“It hasn’t been orthodox or, in that regard, designed that way,” Canter said during that Players debut in March. “It’s just how it worked out for me with the opportunities in front of me.”
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