THE 152ND OPEN

July 20, 2024

Laurie Canter

Mixed Zone

Q. You must be delighted with that nice sprinkling of birdies in that round in tough conditions.

LAURIE CANTER: Probably mixed feelings because I didn't play -- didn't really take advantage of the front nine again. But yeah, felt like when the rain came in, I made a couple of nice putts. I think under par, certainly from the guys that tee off after 2:00, is going to be a good score.

Q. Is it easier playing in the rain than it is in the wind of yesterday?

LAURIE CANTER: I don't know really. It's a different skill. You need to be getting on well with your caddie because it's like a bun fight. You need about three or four arms to kind of get everything kind of dry and get your stuff ready.

But yeah, I'd say probably I'd rather play in the rain. You've at least got some control when the ball is on the ground, which obviously yesterday I think what makes it so tough is when you hit a poor shot and you've got no control on the ground because it's firm and windy.

Q. A lot of hardy souls out there cheering you and everybody else on?

LAURIE CANTER: Yeah, it's good. I still got a few claps, which was nice, given that everyone is holding up a brolly, so it was good.

Q. How did the family and the little one out there find it coming out in the rain?

LAURIE CANTER: Yeah, I had a few people from home who have kind of come around in the weather, so that was good. They all looked soaked. I think it's that sort of day. It's a proper Open day.

Q. You've had a great year. Looking at the whole of it, looking at the Race to Dubai, there's a long time to go yet, but is a PGA TOUR card on the radar?

LAURIE CANTER: Yeah, I think so. That would be awesome, wouldn't it, to play on the PGA TOUR is something I would love to do at some point. Still, we've got such a long way to go with the second half of the year. A lot of big-point tournaments. I kind of, to be honest, before I won, was just a little bit trying to play as well as I could out of my category, make sure I was all right for next year. It's kind of slightly moved the goal posts for me. I've got something to aim for, and that would be great, yeah.

Q. Looking at the last few months (indiscernible), is that a confidence thing?

LAURIE CANTER: No, I think it's been like a strange two years because if you look at my results, when I've been able to come back and play in Europe, they've been very good. It's just I've been playing more on LIV, focusing more on that. Yeah, didn't work out for me playing on the LIV Tour, but I felt like I improved a lot as a golfer. I was around so many good players for quite a long period. I was able to bring a bit of that back to Europe, and I think that's probably been helpful to me, to be around sort of the best players in the world, which was a position I wasn't really in playing in Europe before.

Q. What's been the biggest adjustment from one tour back to Europe?

LAURIE CANTER: The early mornings. Those shotguns are awesome.

I think it is a slightly different style. If you go out and play your first nine holes on LIV poorly, it's like -- it's a long way to come back, especially the field that's kind of assembling now.

The one thing I would say is having done both, I think there's room for both. I like both formats. Can I say that? Are you allowed to say that these days, like you actually like both things? I really do.

I think the four-round, what we grew up watching, the kind of hardy cuts, and you see Homa's reaction yesterday, that's awesome. As a professional when I see that, I think that's amazing, that something like that still happens in golf. That should always be the staple of the big tournaments.

But I love the LIV stuff. I love the three rounds, and you're bringing a kind of different energy. I think it has the potential to be so exciting for fans, especially if the team thing can keep picking up some momentum. I really think it could be cool.

I'm firmly on the middle of the fence because I actually like both. There you go.

Q. Do people seek you out because you're some kind of oracle that's crossed over from tour to tour?

LAURIE CANTER: I get asked all the time, yeah, because it felt like when you were playing it in the beginning, it was like a naughty little secret, whereas now I think there's a greater acceptance for what it is, what it's trying to do.

That is from my peers on the DP World Tour, there's a lot of questions around it for sure, yeah.

Q. Why do you think it didn't work you for you and LIV?

LAURIE CANTER: I just didn't play well enough, ultimately. Like I had a chance to -- I had enough points, I didn't have enough points. That's the game we play. I kind of go back and, yeah, I guess -- that's the game we're playing.

I think potentially one of the things with LIV is you've got a lot of top-quality players, big names who only would have gone if their futures are somewhat secure for a number of years, and in my situation I understood that. I've always felt quite happy and accepting of that.

In that respect, there was always a bit more of a target on my back when I was playing because I knew my place was up for grabs. But I'm pretty at peace with the game we play, and if I would have played a little better or closed off a couple of tournaments I was playing well in, then I might still be out there.

But as you were alluding to earlier, it's been amazing to come back and play full time on the DP World Tour, and I'm thankful I can do that. In that respect I'm one of the lucky ones, and I'll just keep chasing it the rest of the year and hopefully try and finish as high up the list as I can.

Q. What is your best Shane Lowry story? Anything you can share?

LAURIE CANTER: He just seems like a great guy. Okay, I've got a good Shane Lowry story. My first year on Tour, I'm playing the Portuguese Masters. I've had a terrible year. I played like 15, 18 events as a rookie, missed a load of cuts, made no money, and I was in there with Gary Hurley, another guy in a similar position. We were having dinner together at a pizzeria, and end of the meal the bill came, and the lady said, your bill has been settled by that gentleman over there, and it was Shane. So there you go. And I barely knew him, barely had said a word to him at that point. I think he recognised a couple of rookies and he thought, throw these lads a bone. So there you go. I have not forgotten that. It was a really nice gesture.

Q. What is it about his game that translates so well to this test?

LAURIE CANTER: He's got great feel, hasn't he. When people talk about feel, I have always equated it to around the greens, soft hands. He's got that, obviously. But actually with links golf it's like -- because every lie is different. It's not manicured in the same way, semi-rough, rough. He's got great feel for that. I was watching some of the highlights, and he was just getting it pin high with 5-irons, huge crosswinds out of rough, and you think, that's really, really hard to do. And he's proved that a lot, hasn't he.

He's just got a good temperament for links golf in that I think he's got a lot of fight about him. Like if things are going against him, he'll knuckle down and just get his head down, and I think he's going to be very, very difficult to beat in these conditions from what we know about him.