BETTER late than never. Robert Karlsson will make his Ryder Cup debut this month but many felt that the Swede should have been in Mark James’s side at Brookline seven years ago. Having finished in eleventh place in the qualifying list, one spot away from automatic selection, Karlsson was overlooked as a wild card in favour of Andrew Coltart.
Karlsson took the snub on the chin but two more Ryder Cups passed without him before he earned his place at the K Club with victories this season at the Celtic Manor Wales Open and the Deutsche Bank Players Championship. His seven career wins have taken him past Anders Forsbrand to be Sweden’s most prolific champion.
At the latter, the gods again seemed to conspire against him when he returned after a rain break to find that the coin marking his ball had been stolen. Not wanting to invite accusations of cheating, Karlsson replaced the ball a good foot farther from the hole and then saw his putt stop an inch short. Fortunately, he had already built up a three-stroke lead.
At 6ft 5in, Karlsson, the son of a greenkeeper, is one of the tallest men on the European Tour but he is a gentle giant — or at least he is now that a course of psychology has banished the demons that came after too many final-round collapses.
Karlsson is a disciple of Bengt Stern, a psychiatrist who wrote a book called Feeling Bad is a Good Start before dying of cancer in 2002. Among many drastic therapies, Karlsson underwent a two-week fast and stayed up all night hitting 10ft putts, being screamed at whenever he missed. It should be the ideal preparation for the cauldron of trauma that is the Ryder Cup, but first he must return to Wentworth where, at the BMW Championship in May, he was lying third after two rounds before playing the next two in two over par.
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FACT FILE
Age: 37
Nationality: Swedish
Wins: 7, including Celtic Manor Wales Open and Deutsche Bank Players’ Championship in 2006; won his first title, the Turespaña Mediterranean Open, in 1995
Major wins: 0
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Major record in 2006: Masters: did not qualify; US Open: did not qualify; Open: tied 35th; US PGA: tied 29th
World ranking: 42
How he qualified for World Match Play: Second on the European Tour Order of Merit
Previous WMP experience: None