Canter shared the 54-hole lead with Italy’s Guido Migliozzi and carded a closing one-under-par 72 at Green Eagle Golf Courses to finish 13 under, two shots ahead of Bernd Wiesberger and Thriston Lawrence.

Birdies on the 15th and 16th allowed Canter the luxury of a three-putt bogey on the par-three 17th, minutes after Wiesberger had done the same in the group ahead to effectively end his chances.

Lawrence, who carded a four-over-par 77 in the first round, birdied the 15th, 17th and 18th in his closing 68, missing from inside seven feet for a spectacular eagle on the last.

Canter was one of the first wave of players to move to LIV Golf in 2022 but has been a reserve on the Saudi-funded breakaway for the last two seasons and is now back playing the bulk of his golf on his home circuit.

“I’ll find that tough,” the 34-year-old said when asked on Sky Sports what it meant to finally record his maiden win.

“It’s all I’ve wanted to do since before I turned pro so it’s hard to rationalise now, but I’m really happy.

“I tried to just not get caught up in the tournament, keep it as factual as possible. It went my way today and in the past it hasn’t. Probably now that I’ve done it I look back at when I didn’t do it and think it wasn’t so much what I was doing, it was other people doing stuff.

“Today I holed a great putt on 15 and 16 and those sort of things were happening for me today and from my perspective I kept putting one foot in front of the other.

“I know how to play golf, I just kept telling myself that and even on 18 I think in the past I could have thought about things that could go wrong but it was good to just keep my head, hit it on the right side of the fairway where I wanted and hit long of the pin.

“It’s a great feeling and it will probably take a while to totally digest everything that happened.

“This is what I’ve always wanted to do and now that I’ve done it it’s going to open up some opportunities for me.

“In July I think I can play the Scottish Open, which is great, it means I can play those tournaments at the end of the year and ultimately if I’m going to climb the world rankings and play the biggest tournaments in the world you have to know how to win and you probably only get that belief once you do it.

“Hopefully it means I can push on and go from strength to strength.”