SANDWICH, England – As one of the few current full-time members of both the PGA and European tours, Robert Karlsson owns a unique perspective on what separates players from the two continents.
“I might get some shakes of the head on this,” the lanky Swede said while standing off the 18th green at Royal St. George’s on Wednesday, “but I think the Europeans are the better ball-strikers, in general, because we are playing under tougher weather conditions, but the Americans are better putters.”
Karlsson wasn’t without his reasoning for such an opinion.
“They play on better greens week in and week out and you have to putt well to have any chance,” he explained, “whereas in Europe, the greens are not so good. You can get away with being an iffy putter, because it doesn’t matter how you roll it, you’ll still miss a lot of putts.”
After missing the cut in nine of his first dozen Open Championship starts, including 11 straight, Karlsson owns some confidence entering this week, with T-7 and T-14 results in his last two appearances.
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Tags: British Open, Robert Karlsson
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Sobel has covered golf since 2004 and provides columns, blogs, chats for Golf Channel.
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