Karlsson gains wire to wire win

Robert Karlsson became the third successive 'wire-to-wire' winner of the European Masters when the 33-year-old Swede captured his fifth European Tour title on Sunday.

Karlsson's closing level-par 71, for a 14-under-par 270, gave him a four-stroke win over 1999 British Open Champion Paul Lawrie and South African Trevor Immelman, who shot final round 72s, as he followed in the footsteps of Argentines Eduardo Romero and Ricardo Gonzalez, the previous two Swiss winners.

Although Karlsson briefly lost the lead he had held since Thursday, when he ran up three successive bogeys from the second and allowed Lawrie, England's Barry Lane, and Italian Emanuele Canonica to catch him, he had wrested it back by the ninth.

Lane had overtaken him by the eighth but the 1993 European Masters champion crashed out of contention with five bogeys and a triple-bogey when he lost a ball up a tree on 16.

Karlsson's opening slump included a shot into a flower bed on the short third, but he soon nipped his rivals' challenge in the bud, compiling a run of five birdies in 11 holes, including three twos after his early short-hole mishap.

By the time he bogeyed the last two holes, his rivals had long before run out of steam.

"This is a big win for me, particularly because of all the changes I've been making with coaches and my swing," said Karlsson, entering the winner's enclosure for the first time since taking the Spanish Open 18 months ago.

"I looked at the conditions and the way the course was set up and felt if I dropped shots at the beginning I still had plenty left in the bag.

"Even when they caught me I knew they still had to go on and beat me and that would be difficult, just as it turned out."

Karlsson received a $245,000 first prize and also jumped from 79th in the European rankings to 34th.

Immelman's steadier back nine than Lawrie allowed the 22-year-old South African to claim his third second place of the year, in his second season, after finishing runner-up in the French Open and Scandinavian Masters.

World number one and British Open Champion Ernie Els demonstrated his frustration by hurling his ball into the pond at the 18th after a round of 74 left him 11 strokes behind.

"I was up and down all week," said the South African, the highest profile critic of Severiano Ballesteros's redesigned Crans greens during the week.

Els admitted he had not lived up to his 'Big Easy' billing this time, saying: "You ask yourself 'Can you take your punishment or not?', and this week I couldn't take it.

"It's late in the season, though."

He stayed on just long enough to give supermodel Cindy Crawford, Els's tournament sponsor's co-guest-of-honor, a short golf lesson.

Another star billing in Crans, six-times major winner Nick Faldo, also struggled on the final day, finishing only four-under after a 73 with no birdies on his card.

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