Flying start for Karlsson

Sweden’s Robert Karlsson made a flying start to the second round of the Scandic Carlsberg Scandinavian Masters today.

Karlsson, attempting to become the first home winner of the €1.8m since 1998, picked up four shots in the space of three holes in Malmo this morning to jump into a share of the lead at Barseback.

Starting on the 10th hole, Karlsson opened with a par on the tough 448-yard par four, but then birdied the equally difficult 219-yard 11th, one of three holes revamped ahead of this year’s tournament and September’s Solheim Cup.

Better was to come as the 6ft 5in Monaco-based Swede then eagled the par-five 12th and birdied the 14th to be four under par for his first five holes and five under for the tournament.

That was good enough to make it a four-way tie at the top of the leaderboard alongside overnight leaders Nick Dougherty and Andrew Coltart and former Ryder Cup captain Mark James.

Dougherty had dropped a shot on his opening hole, the 10th, but birdied the 16th while Coltart was among the later starters.

Crewe’s David Gilford, who had birdied his last two holes late yesterday evening to claim a share of the lead, also bogeyed the 10th to drop back to four under.

Dougherty’s opening 67 was his best round since being diagnosed with glandular fever in May and despite defying doctor’s orders to take a complete rest from the game as he tries to secure his card for next year, he still has loftier ambitions in mind.

His best finish so far has been a distant second to Adam Scott in the Qatar Masters in his rookie season, with a third place just two shots behind winner Stephen Leaney in the German Masters later in 2002 convincing him he should be winning tournaments by now – at the age of 21.

“I’ve backed off myself a bit now, I’ve been putting so much pressure on myself after a reasonably good year last year,” revealed the former Walker Cup star and protege of six-time major winner Nick Faldo.

“I automatically came out and presumed I should be able to win now.

“I put so much pressure on myself to do it, I got by at the start by making a lot of cuts but it was taking me too long I thought and I started playing awful.

“My mental approach would go to pot, it was all getting on top of me, I didn’t enjoy playing that much and then I found out in May I had glandular fever which was making me tired and you get a bit irritable when you’re tired. It all added up to me trying too hard.”