WHY is it when Irish people have been getting out and about a lot more that we have no idea what makes the Swedes tick? We could replay one or two of Bjorn Borg's Wimbledon finals, lip-sync to a fair few of Abba's hits and deconstruct Henrik Larsson's genius in front of goal, and still tell you diddly squat about Sweden. A bit loose on the morals and dry on the old humour, maybe?

Around the pro golf circuit, there seems to be an acceptance that an interview with one of the Swedish players is likely to be only marginally more insightful than a sitdown with the notoriously taciturn Retief Goosen.

The game-plan in advance of the Seve Trophy had been to prime Padraig Harrington for the inside track on his new life as the British Open champion, and to winkle out more nuggets from Paul McGinley as to what makes him such a match-play animal. But Harrington temporarily ran out of steam and declared himself unavailable, and then the Britain and Ireland captain, Nick Faldo, decided in his wisdom that McGinley was surplus to requirements.

So what now for an underwhelming event which had been given the thumbs down by no fewer than 11 leading players? There was always Colin Montgomerie, as loquacious on his day as Goosen is reticent, but aren't we already suffering from a touch of Montgomerie-overload? Perhaps Faldo himself, but he was suddenly less voluble than he is on American TV once a browned-off McGinley announced he was resigning his post as Ryder Cup vice-captain.

Try one of the Swedish guys, someone suggested. On the basis that Jesper Parnevik's preferred dietary supplement was once a handful of tasty volcanic dust, that Henrik Stenson's search for mental fortitude has led him to walk blindfolded across wooden beams suspended from the ground, and that the cut of Jarmo Sandelin's jib is enough to make Ian Poulter look positively dowdy, maybe there was hope after all.

At the back of the Heritage's clubhouse overlooking the 18th and ninth greens stands Robert Karlsson, relaxed, smiling and tall at 6'5". Very friendly, very articulate but, on the face of it, not an eccentric bone in his body. Then slowly, mercifully, in this week of absent players and absent galleries, he reveals the strange world he once inhabited.

Karlsson is now ranked just inside the world's top 50, has played his part in Europe's emphatic Ryder Cup success at the K Club last year, and is Sweden's most prolific winner on the European Tour with seven victories. But he's 38 now, and those who knew him when he started out reckoned he would blaze a trail much earlier.

Second behind Faldo at the 1992 European Open, it seemed as if Karlsson's career would take off, however, even then he was wracked by doubts, and intermittently thought about quitting the game. Three wins by the end of the decade somehow weren't enough to ease the frustration and emptiness he felt.

"In a way it was no different from a lot of players, I just needed to get some perspective, to realise that missing a putt wasn't necessarily the most important thing in the world, " he says. "I did think about quitting quite a bit, and at times I was angry, I couldn't separate golf from life. I was wondering if it was all worth it."

In the search for some elusive balance, he went through extensive counselling sessions, and even though now he admits that on occasions he was looking in the wrong places, he was willing to try out a few alternative therapies.

For nearly two weeks, he and a group of friends fasted by eating small amounts of bread and drinking milk. "I felt very tired at times, " he explains "but it was good at the end. You come out of it and you feel different." Another time, he experimented with not eating after 4.00pm each day.

There was also the night when he spent six hours in a room putting non-stop from about 10 feet while a friend berated him every time he missed. "It was a test, a mental test, to see if I could take the pressure."

By 2000, with status and a few million euro in the bank, it became clear that the off-beat therapies hadn't worked, and once again he was on the verge of locking his clubs away. He had been devastated the year before when he was overlooked by Ryder Cup captain Mark James who chose Andrew Coltart as one of his wild-card picks despite the fact that Karlsson had finished 11th in the qualifying list.

In his book Into the Bear Pit, James was able to tap into the Swede's reaction: "Robert was absolutely guttedf if Bernhard [Langer] was surprised, Robert was in shock. He just could not believe what he was hearing.

I think he could have accepted if I had gone down the list to Bernhard, but he could not take in why he had to lose out to anybody else."

"Of course I was really disappointed, and I suppose that was in a way linked to how I felt in 2000, " he says. "At our level, it's hard to accept when things are just average, mediocre. You want to do well so badly, and when it doesn't happen, you wonder what's the point. So yes, quitting was a real possibility. But then things pick up, and you feel good about yourself again."

He regrouped with wins in the Spanish Open and the European Masters, however, in 2003, he found himself in a hole once again. When he was at the golf course, he'd be thinking he should be at home with his wife Ebba and their baby daughter, and when he was home, he felt guilty about not being at the golf course.

A meeting with Annchristene Lundstrom, who he describes as a "life coach" and with whom he continues to work, helped him get back on the straight and narrow. "It's about learning how to control what you're doing, and not worrying about what you're not doing. It's simple, I know, but it was something I was really struggling with.

You still need that anger sometimes, but when I hit a bad shot now, I move on. I'm better now, but it has taken me years to realise that there's nothing I can do about it."

Last season, he won twice, finished fourth in the order of merit with earnings of over 2m and qualified for the Ryder Cup matches at the K Club with something to spare.

If this year hasn't been as auspicious, he set out in a new direction by playing 12 events in America where he surprised nobody by finishing sixth at the prestigious Players Championship.

He lives in Monaco, but typically retreats now and then to a second home in the wilds of northern Sweden where no one has a clue who he is.

Given his off-course travails, it's strange that he hesitates when asked what the balance is between the technical and mental aspects of the game at his level.

"Maybe one and 99 per cent, " he suggests initially, "well, actually, no, you can't put a figure on something like that. But take Padraig Harrington in the final round at Carnoustie where he's almost perfect for 71 holes, and then suddenly he goes and hits a couple of really bad shots.

You can't tell me there's anything technical about that."

If, some day soon, you see Robert Karlsson with a lump of major silverware in his hand, looking like the staid, orthodox Swede that he isn't, you'll know better.

The distance between the psychotherapist's couch and the winner's enclosure is shrinking all the time.