Laurie Canter’s appearance at The Players Championship back in March — complete with the traditional Tiffany cufflinks handed out by PGA Tour commissioner Jay Monahan — seemed like a symbolic moment at the time. Now, eight months later, it marks the beginning of a new chapter: Canter is set to become the first former LIV Golf player to earn full PGA Tour status.
Canter secured his card by finishing among the top 10 non-exempt players in the Race to Dubai standings, which concluded Sunday. It’s an achievement that would have felt impossible three years ago, when he was all-in on LIV Golf’s debut season.
On June 9, 2022, Canter teed off as a founding member of Cleeks GC. Just minutes after that first tee shot, Monahan announced that all LIV competitors were suspended from PGA Tour events. LIV tournaments were deemed “unauthorized,” and anyone who played in them — including non-members like Canter — would face a one-year waiting period before being eligible for PGA Tour competition.
Caught between two tours during golf’s modern “cold war,” Canter played LIV’s full 2022 season and served as a wild card in 2023. But early in 2024, he was replaced by LIV’s newest headline signing, Anthony Kim. Suddenly, his options were limited.
Still, Canter had financial security — more than $5.6 million earned across 20 LIV starts — and a renewed opportunity on the DP World Tour. He made the most of it. Canter won the European Open in June 2024 and the Bahrain Championship in March 2025, performances that delivered just enough ranking points to earn a berth into The Players.
At TPC Sawgrass, he drew significant attention during first-timer media day, even though he went on to miss the cut. His season since has been a roller coaster — some big weeks, some lean ones — but his best golf came when it mattered most. A strong finish at the DP World Tour Championship pushed him into the top 10 on the Race to Dubai list, securing one of the coveted PGA Tour cards available for 2026.
“It hasn’t been orthodox, and it certainly hasn’t been by design,” Canter said during his Players debut. “It’s just how it worked out with the opportunities in front of me.”
Now, one of those opportunities is a full season on the PGA Tour — a place no former LIV player had reached until Canter broke through.
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