PONTE VEDRA BEACH, FLORIDA | Soon after lunch on Thursday, Laurie Canter took his place on his first tee at the Players Championship. Laurie who? A star trio of Rory McIlroy, winner of the 2019 Players, Scottie Scheffler, going for a third victory in a row in this event, and Xander Schauffele, the 2024 Open and PGA champion, had teed off an hour earlier. Their names and their deeds needed no further explanation.
But Canter, a much-travelled, reserved Englishman who has played on four continents already this year, was not a well-known name nor figure in the US. He was about to play the first hole of his first round at his first event on the PGA Tour this year. And he was nervous.
He took a deep breath and talked to himself, settling his eyes on one particular tree just a few yards to the right of the fairway. “Come on Laurie, concentrate,” he muttered to himself. “You know what you’ve got to do. Hit a draw off that tree and make sure you hit the fairway.” He did that, struck a crisp 9-iron to 4 feet and holed that for a birdie. By any standards that was a pretty good start. Then and only then did he begin to relax. The latest episode of Laurie’s Life and Times had begun well.
Canter is something of a curiosity, the first golfer to return to professional golf on the DP World Tour and the PGA Tour after a spell on LIV Golf effectively ended when he missed a putt shorter than his height in December 2023. If his time on that tour ended abruptly, it was nonetheless lucrative. By then he had earned nearly $5 million.
His reappearance on the DP World Tour, his home tour, has been successful. He has won twice on it in the past nine months, got himself a world ranking high enough to be in with a good chance of making next month’s Masters (he is currently 43rd and the leading 50 at the end of this month are eligible to compete at Augusta National) and is on the radar of Luke Donald, who will captain Europe at this year’s Ryder Cup, as a potential team member.
Canter, 35, is a man easy to warm to. He loves life in the US but it’s a place of size and noise and he could be swamped. In a world where the voices are loud, the clothes vibrant, the food portions enormous, he is the epitome of understatement, dressing sombrely in dark colours and conducting himself with a quiet modesty, applauding good shots by a playing partner. Even the way he strikes the ball seems muted and hardly thunderous though there is no denying his length.
For the past year Canter’s travels have been with Max Smith, his caddie, a friend from the days when they were teenagers playing junior golf, and both later competed on minor professional tours in England. “After that my career stayed down here,” Smith said, moving his hand horizontally, “while his took off.” At this Smith raised his hand well above his head.
“Everything’s bigger, cars, food, how long it takes to get from one side of where you are practising to the other. The scale of this event is enormous.” – Laurie Canter
Earlier in the week Canter had joined the other debutants at this event in a ceremony on the lawn outside the enormous clubhouse at TPC Sawgrass. He sat in a film director’s chair with his name prominently displayed and answered questions put to him by journalists from France, the UK and the US.
“It’s the scale of everything, it’s so big over here,” he said, laughing. “Everything’s bigger, cars, food, how long it takes to get from one side of where you are practising to the other. The scale of this event is enormous.”
Could it be intimidating? “Potentially,” he replied. “It’s awesome. My caddie [Max] prepped me a little as to what to expect. It’s challenging, certainly off the tee. You have got to get the ball in play because the rough’s up. You are really going to have to play good golf to get in here.”
Late on Thursday night, half an hour after he had sunk his last putt in near darkness, he sat on a wall near the players’ car park, one leg crossed over the other. He fiddled with a large ice cream as he reflected on his play. “I am happy with my work today,” he said in a good example of British understatement.
A round of 68, 4-under par, contained six birdies and two bogeys, 27 putts including three from 35 feet on the 13th, and hoisted him to eighth place. “I got out of position a few times and did well to save par,” he said.
As he played he did so conservatively, knowing the perils of being too daring on such a difficult course. He looked calm and in control, grateful when a tricky chip from above the hole hit the flagstick on the fourth. It would probably have run into the water had it not done so. He saved par with deft chips on several other holes.
“What we play week in week out in Europe does feel like we get some holes that give us maybe a bit of a free pass whereas that’s not the case here,” he said. “There is a lot of thought needed for every shot. Take 17 and 18. If you get out of those holes with a par you’re more than happy.”
A car arrived, driven by Max and plastered with the words “contestant’s car.” Canter stood up, shook hands and was gone no doubt to a well-deserved rest before he had to return and tangle with the Stadium Course in 12 hours all over again.