How this former LIV golfer qualified for the PGA Tour’s Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass

Laurie Canter is set to mark a significant milestone in the unification of professional men’s golf in a couple weeks.

The 35-year-old Englishman fell in a playoff Sunday at the DP World Tour’s Investec South African Open, which was shortened to 54 holes with Canter and Dylan Naidoo facing off in a sudden-death playoff Sunday to determine a winner. Naidoo won, but Canter’s finish is enough to propel him inside the top 50 of the Official World Golf Ranking come Monday’s update.

Here’s why it matters: all top-50 players in OWGR are exempt into the PGA Tour’s Players Championship at TPC Sawgrass. That means Canter will be eligible to tee it up in Ponte Vedra Beach, and if he plays, he’ll become the first former LIV player to compete in a strictly PGA Tour event (non-major or non-co-sanctioned event). Canter played last year at the Genesis Scottish Open and Open Championship.

Canter played for LIV Golf each of its first three seasons, first as a founding member of Cleeks GC in 2022 then as a reserve in 2023. He then competed in LIV Golf’s first two events of 2024 in Mexico and Mayakoba, and he confirmed last year his start date for competing on the Tour would be backdated from his last unauthorized start, which the PGA Tour confirmed. That means as of last month, Canter was eligible to compete in PGA Tour events, and that start will seemingly come in a couple weeks in Florida.

It has been more than a year since he last competed for LIV Golf, and with unification seemingly around the corner between the PGA Tour and Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, it would be hard to imagine Canter isn’t in the field at TPC Sawgrass.

If he plays, it will be his first non-major or non-co-sanctioned event start on Tour and his ninth overall.

This article originally appeared on Golfweek: How this former LIV golfer will play at the 2025 Players Championship