LAURIE Canter has revealed the words of wisdom from back home that boosted his successful bid to earn a third successive season on the European Tour.

The 28 year old, from the Cumberwell Park club near Bradford on Avon, secured a return to the continent’s premier tour by coming through two stages of qualifying school in Spain, culminating in a top 25 finish at Lumine Golf Club in Tarragona on Thursday.

Canter first qualified for the tour through Q School at the end of 2015 but was forced to return for a second time after finishing 155th on the European Tour’s Race To Dubai order of merit this season.

After breezing through the initial second stage of qualifying, he carded four of his six rounds in the 60s at the finals to seal his place back at Europe’s top table in 2018.

Despite revealing his nerves were more frayed this time than either of the two previous occasions, Canter was buoyed by a chat with Cumberwell Park’s golf manager Ali James prior to his departure.

“Ali James gave me a nice little pep talk before I went, which was good,’’ he said.

“He basically just said the club are proud of me and that I should just go to Q School and not feel like I haven’t had a good year.

“It was a nice thing for him to say. He sort of took me aside before I went and said ‘go and see it as an opportunity.’

“It was a good thing for him to have done.

“Sometimes you do wonder what other people think, especially the people around you, so it was good he took me aside and sort of relaxed me a little bit.’’

Canter, whose two best finishes on tour were inside the top 20 in South Africa in the early part of the year, admitted he had to get to grips with an altered mindset as he battled for his return to the European Tour.

“It was obviously a long couple of weeks, so it was nice to get it done,’’ he added.

“I was very relieved, I was nervous really, going up those last holes.

“I felt more nervous (on the final day) than I did last year or the year before.

“The reason I know that is that I really felt I had it to lose. It’s such a bad mindset to go into a round of golf with.

“I really didn’t care about winning, which is something I wouldn’t normally say.

“You’ve got to go and you’ve got to go and get it done, so it’s an odd mental space to be.’’

He added: “It was a different situation to the last couple of years, where I’d sort of really got into it because I’d come out of a spell of perhaps not playing well, then finding my game at Q School and really enjoying it.

“This year, I really felt like I was playing well. For a large part of the year, I’d never really got it done over the weekend and cashed in, both physically and metaphorically speaking, which I would have liked to have done.

“I sort of felt that if I turned up with my game, I had a chance to get through and I really tried to get in to what I could do.

“I’ve been working hard on my putting and I played some really good golf, certainly for nine out of 10 rounds.’’