20 September 2023 , 17:03
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LIV Golf star Laurie Canter is poised to tee it up at the Open de France on the DP World Tour this week after being replaced on Ian Poulter's Majesticks team.
Canter has been a member of the Majesticks setup alongside Poulter, Lee Westwood and Henrik Stenson throughout the majority of the 2023 campaign, and has appeared in the last seven LIV events. The Englishman will not be part of the business end of the season though, due to the return of Sam Horsfield.
33-year-old Canter was brought into the Majesticks team in Adelaide after Horsfield suffered a hip injury that has kept him out since his withdrawal at LIV Singapore back in April. Five months on though the Englishman has returned to full fitness and is back in the field for this week's breakaway league event in Chicago.
This has of course come at the expense of Canter, whose stand-in duties have come to and end with three events left to play.
Instead of making the trip to the 54-hole tournament in Chicago, Canter will instead be in DP World Tour action in Paris. Earlier this year, the DP World Tour were given the green flag to sanction players who had made the decision to join the LIV setup.
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Canter, however, proved to be the exception due to his exemption status, meaning he has been able to compete in the Saudi-backed league without being handed a £100,000 fine or ban. His outing at the Open de France will be his second on the Tour in four weeks, after competing at the ISPS Handa World Invitational last month.
Laurie Canter has spent the last few months with LIV Golf (AP)Amid his playing status, the Englishman has often found himself in the middle of the dispute between the rival tours over the past year, which appears to be finally settling after a framework agreement between the two rivalling sides was announced in June. The ending of the litigation will be music to the ears of Canter, who described the ugly dispute within the professional game as 'embarrassing'.
Speaking in July, he told The Guardian: "There have been points where it has been embarrassing to be a professional golfer. I have had teaching pros say to me that they have been embarrassed by some of the conduct that has gone on. That is not what being a golfer is about.
"Camaraderie between pros should be one of the best things about being a golfer. There has not been enough people sitting in a room, chatting. I think if you are a member of a tour, you have a responsibility to air grievances privately. Saying things through the press is not the way to go about it if you are serious about doing what is best for the game.”