Laurie Canter has revealed his main aim for the 2025 season is to play his way into the major championships, with a debut at the Masters on his radar.
Canter is in the Middle East for the Hero Dubai Desert Classic on the DP World Tour, fresh off starring for GB&Ireland in their Team Cup victory over Continental Europe last week. Having won three points out of four in the matchplay event, Canter has seen his impressive form continue at Emirates Golf Club.
The Englishman finds himself sat at eight-under-par heading into the weekend, after carding back-to-back rounds of 68 across the opening two rounds of the first Rolex Series event of the season.
Playing in one of the Tour’s biggest events of the campaign is an important step for Canter, whose career had come to somewhat of a crossroads in recent years. Having spent two years playing on the LIV setup, Canter’s exemption category allowed him to return to his home Tour sanction-free last year.
And with the 35-year-old arguably playing some of the best golf of his career at the moment, he is keen to take full advantage of the opportunities he has this season. “It is really important,” Canter told reporters including Mirror Sport of teeing it up in Dubai. “You need to be playing these Rolex events and playing well in them, and that is the stuff that opens doors.
“I think every player that is playing here wants to be playing majors and big tournaments. At the moment if you choose to play the LIV stuff you don’t get ranking points, but it was my choice to do that. But I think at the moment it is just trying to get my head down.
For all the latest on news, politics, sports, and showbiz from the USA, go to The Mirror US.
“My first goal is trying to get in the PGA [Championship] in May, and you never know, have a crazy couple of weeks to make it to Augusta.” Having won his first DP World Tour at the European Open last June, Canter put himself in a strong position to earn one of the 10 PGA Tour cards on offer to those competing on the Wentworth-based circuit.
In the end, the Englishman just missed out, but he will get the opportunity once more this campaign. If he is to earn a PGA Tour spot for 2026 it would prove a pivotal moment in men’s professional golf, as Canter would most likely become the first LIV member to join the PGA Tour membership since the breakaway league’s launch in 2022.
Whilst a spot in the United States is in his sights, the former LIV reserve admitted it is not at the top of his priority list. “It is not particularly high up there,” he claimed. “Not that I don’t want it, it is kind of an obvious goal but you need a lot of things to go your way to get one of the 10 cards, so you are going to need top-15, top-18 Order of Merit.
“So I’ll have to compete in a lot of tournaments and play well. I have never been someone with targets and things like that. It would obviously be great, but there are so many good tournaments on this tour I like focusing on my schedule and then we will just see how it all pans out.”
Get email updates with the day’s biggest stories