Emanuele Canonica was born on January 7th, 1971 in Turin, Italy. In 1990 he won the Italian National Juniors Championship before turning pro the following year. He first Qualified for the European Tour in 1994 via the qualifying school. He struggled on tour in his first few seasons.

Canonica is one of the longest hitters on tour but always struggled with accuracy. After a few lessons with Butch Harmon his performances began to improve. In 2005 he collected his first title the Johnnie Walker Classic at Gleneagles.