After missing the halfway cut in the Open championship for the second time in three years at Lytham last summer Faldo was in the mood to pack it all in.

“I was really down,” he said. “I was arguing with people that I should quit and just build courses and have a bit of fun. I told them to come up with a good reason why I should carry on.”

It took the combination of his wife (fiancee at the time), business partner, sports psychologist and physiotherapist to convince him that there was more for him to achieve – but he also began to realise it was not the way to bow out.

“I’m not a giver-upper, even if I’m down low. After you have time to think about it and come to your senses, I’m not going to give in.”

After taking time off to work on his game, his fitness and his attitude, he came out this year and was 10th, sixth and third on his first three starts.

A fourth-place finish in the Volvo PGA championship and fifth spot in the US Open – his best performance in a major for six years – followed and now, after more disappointments at the Open and US PGA, he is in contention again and hoping he can capture his first solo title since March 1997.

“Ill take it step by step,” added Faldo, who lies joint second with Scotland’s Paul Lawrie and Karlsson’s fellow Swede Mathias Gronberg.

“I’m just trying to be very disciplined out there, trying to do what I want to do on each shot. If I keep doing that we shall see, but it’s good to feel a bit of pressure.”

After a round which included a three-iron to 10 feet for eagle on the first (actually his 10th) and chip-in birdie at the 12th, all manner of things seem possible again.

And that includes being a playing-captain of Europe’s next Ryder Cup team.

Faldo and Bernhard Langer are the two front-runners to take over from Sam Torrance and on the chances of combining that with winning a record 12th cap, he said: “It would make the job very difficult, but you never know.”

He led for most of the day at Crans-sur-Sierre – scene of one of his first overseas victory in 1983 – but then Karlsson finished with four birdies in five holes to take top spot from him.

Karlsson was second to Faldo at the 1992 European Open at Sunningdale, but he has not yet become the player Faldo thought he would.

After just missing out on the 1999 Ryder Cup team the 33-year-old dropped to 114th on the Order of Merit the following season and after climbing back to 15th last year currently lies only 79th.

His best finish this season is only ninth, but Karlsson had only 24 putts on the much-criticised greens re-designed by Seve Ballesteros three years ago.

“They’re not great and I think they are unfair,” he said. “It was a lot more fun to play the course before.”

Open champion Ernie Els was out-spoken after his one-under 70 and last year’s European number one Retief Goosen had been even before he matched his fellow South African’s score.

“I think they should just re-design them,” said Els. “They’re really not up to Tour standard both in design and condition.

“Some of them just don’t fit the design at all. That’s probably the problem - every one is the same if you’ve got a three-iron or sand-wedge.”

Els’ pitch to the 632-yard ninth landed five feet from the hole, but spun off to the right into a bunker. He took six.

Goosen said: “In general the greens are not good at all. It is a pretty bad design that every one had to be the same, falling off on the sides. I think it is a shame.”

Faldo jokingly described them as “the finest cup cakes in Crans”.

Lawrie, winner of the Wales Open last month, shared the lead until a closing bogey.

“I’ve been doing a lot of work in the gym trying to get a little bit stronger, so it is all coming together,” said the 1999 Open champion.

And the greens? “They’re fine, no problem,” he added. “A little grainy, but they’re fine.”

Gronberg won the event in 1995 and would love to do it again. He is only 119th on the money list after taking time out for the birth of his first child.