Laurie Canter says renewed confidence in his driving is enabling him to play with a more attack-minded approach ahead of this week’s Catalunya Championship.
The Englishman, 32, has missed just one cut – at the HSBC Abu Dhabi Golf Championship – in seven events on the DP World Tour this year, with his best result a tied 12th finish at the Commercial Bank Qatar Masters in March.
Canter began a four-week stretch of events in Europe by finishing tied 30th at the ISPS Handa Championship in Spain last week and a closing three-under-par 67 at Infinitum’s Lakes Course has provided further reason for optimism.
"I have tried to work hard on my swing and get myself in a place technically and subsequently mentally where I can free up and enjoy a game and hopefully that leads to some better scores.”
“A big foundation of my game has always been driving the ball well,” Canter said ahead of the second of back-to-back events in Spain.
“I found myself early on this season just not quite swinging the driver as well as I could to be honest and then you hit a couple of funny shots and you don’t back yourself as much as your normally would.
“There might be a 50/50 tee shot and you are looking at your caddie and saying, ‘is that a driver or a three wood?’, when normally the driver is out of the bag and the headcover is off.
“Driving is a big part of how I play well. After a little bit of a rocky start in Abu Dhabi, I know I made the cut in Dubai, but I love that course in Dubai so finishing where I finished was not really a very good result.
“Just slowly getting a little confidence going with the top end of my bag will help me in taking a few things on because the weeks out here the longer I have played, it is about freeing up and trying to play as well as you can. That is going to carry you to some success.
“I had a spell of probably being a bit defensive-minded. I have tried to work hard on my swing and get myself in a place technically and subsequently mentally where I can free up and enjoy a game and hopefully that leads to some better scores.”
Canter enjoyed a breakthrough season in 2020 finishing 19th on the season-long Rankings as he recorded five top ten results, before recording a further five last year.
The highlight of his 2021 season was a tied second-place finish at the prestigious BMW PGA Championship – a Rolex Series event – but despite those good performances Canter admits there were times where he had to overcome dips in confidence.
“The nature of the game and the challenge it presents makes that more difficult so if you are off your game there is a mental challenge with is managing that and then there a wider thing where you are managing your confidence and expectation going from week to week,” Canter said.
“That is something I have worked on and continue to work on a lot. It would have looked like I was riding high for 18 months but within that there was some poor golf at times as well.
“The art of being a good player is not pressing the panic button too early and trying to treat triumph and disaster as much the same and it probably leads to a longer career.”
This week’s Catalunya Championship marks a return for Canter to PGA Catalunya Golf and Wellness, a venue where he earned his Tour card in both 2015 and 2016.
Currently ranked 97th in the DP World Tour Rankings, Canter is excited to play at the acclaimed Stadium Course which has undergone a €1million sustainability-focused upgrade as he hopes his game clicks to produce a “big week”.
Among the course changes, include the repositioning of the tee at the sixth and the fairway moved to the left along with the addition of a fairway bunker, while players will also be tested off the tee at the par four tenth which now features a right-to-left dogleg.
“The whole venue is amazing,” Canter enthused. “I remember the first time I came here. I had been playing on the EuroPro Tour. I don’t mean this disrespectfully at all but to go from that venue and set-up and course condition to out here was a big jump.
“Even playing nine holes today, we were chatting among ourselves, I am not sure we go to many places that are better than this. I think it is an amazing course, tests every part of you. In that respect everything they seem to do they do well here.
“As players we are lucky to come here, and I hope we come back here a lot because the whole set-up: hotels; the course; where it is positioned in Europe is awesome. I love it!”
