How Phil Mickelson's red-faced moment launched English golfer's LIV career
English golfer Laurie Canter has revealed Phil Mickelson's tone-deaf remarks paved the way for his own recruitment to LIV.
English golfer Laurie Canter has revealed Phil Mickelson's tone-deaf remarks paved the way for his own recruitment to LIV.
The disruptive PIF-backed breakaway launched in June 2022, with the inaugural $25m 54-hole event taking place at Centurion Club.
Four months prior, Mickelson almost brought down the whole show before it even began when his reckless remarks about Saudi Arabia were published.
In an interview with Alan Shipnuck, Mickelson acknowledged the Kingdom's human rights abuses - including the 2018 murder of Jamal Khashoggi and the execution of gay individuals - but expressed willingness to overlook these issues to gain leverage over the PGA Tour.
The remarks led to a significant fallout, with Mickelson losing several key sponsors. The six-time major champ even decided to take a self-imposed break from the sport and disappeared from the public eye.
According to Canter, several of the top-ranked golfers in the world had already agreed to play at Centurion, only to withdraw after Lefty's thoughts were published.
"And it basically meant they had to find some players to play in the league for that first year," Canter told the Life on Tour podcast.
Canter explained he believed he was asked because he had just broken into the top 100 in the OWGR.
"I remember my agent phoned me and said, there is going to be a tournament at Centurion. It's in six weeks. It's $25 million. And it's three rounds of golf. And I was like, and I was like, what's on the same week? You know, what are we playing?
"And I wasn't playing in that event on the DP World Tour within the schedule. So I said, like, [I am] definitely going to have a game."
Canter played in all seven events of LIV's inaugural 'beta-test' campaign. The following year, he filled in for injured LIV players as a reserve.
He tried to earn his full-time spot with the breakaway in 2023, but came up agonisingly short in a play-off at LIV's version of qualifying school.
The 35-year-old explained that, at least in his situation, he really wasn't aware with what he initially was signing up for. "Nobody really did," he said.
But the financial opportunity was just too good to ignore. Overall, Canter has earned just shy of $6m on the course with LIV.
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Still, his and other players' decisions to jump ship were heavily scrutinised.
"I didn't really get any heat," Canter said. "My best mate Eddie Pepperell didn't like me doing it. You know, that was tough.
"He's one of my best mates and he he couldn't understand my reasoning for it. He didn't like the principles of it. So he gave me a hard time.
"But, like, we got like got over it like and I think usually if you talk to your mates, you'll get through stuff like good friends are all available. Yeah.
"They have to tell you what they think. But by and large, if people slag me off, they did it behind my back.
"So I had to sort of just keep my head down and crack on. And I was comfortable with the people around me and kind of my circle, my my troops, so to speak. They were supportive. So that's that's really kind of all I've really focused on in that scenario anyway."
Canter on making PGA Tour history
In March, Canter became the first golfer to defect from LIV back to the PGA Tour.
He qualified for the flagship Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass by virtue of his ranking.
He had also never been a member of the PGA Tour, so wasn't subject to a ban.
Canter described the week of The Players as 'strange', adding: "Normally you might get one or two people wanting to speak to you.
"There was there was literally loads of journalists who wanted to speak to me all of a sudden, like, and I was like, there's nothing [to talk about].
"There was no real story to tell in my book."
Ben Smith joined the GolfMagic team in September 2021, initially as a content executive.
These days, he assumes the position of content manager.
