Lian-Wei Zhang became the first Chinese winner on the European Tour by ending Ernie Els' quest for a fourth straight victory in the Caltex Masters.

World number two Els led by one shot playing the final hole but ran up a bogey five and then saw playing partner Zhang hole from five feet for birdie to snatch the title and £92,000 first prize.

Zhang carded a closing 70 for a 10-under total of 278, with Els a shot behind and Thailand's Prayad Marksaeng another stroke back in third. England's Simon Khan and Holland's Maarten Lafeber shared fourth on seven under.

"I felt I played okay but I didn't putt well at all," said Els, who carded a final round 73, his worst of the week by three shots. "Apart from yesterday I struggled with the pace of the greens.

"And the heat eventually got to me a little bit. I felt a little bit tired towards the end, it was tough. I have to take my hat off to Zhang, he stuck in well and didn't make any mistakes really. But the way I putted I let them all in a bit.

"It is always tough to lose like this but it has happened before and will probably happen again."

It is not the first time Zhang, ranked 141st in the world at the start of the week, has taken some famous scalps.

The 37-year-old memorably defeated Colin Montgomerie in a Dunhill Cup match at St Andrews in 1998, and beat former Open champion Nick Price on the fifth hole of a play-off to retain his Macau Open title in October last year.

"I am delighted," said Zhang, who will miss next week's Heineken Classic in Melbourne to celebrate the Chinese New Year with his family. "I have played so many times on the European Tour but never won before.

"When I saw Ernie pull out an iron on the 18th and miss the fairway I knew I had to push very hard. I thought my chance had come. I was very nervous when Ernie was putting in case he made par but not so nervous with my putt.

"This is a milestone in my career. Ernie Els is a great player and it was a pleasure playing with him."

Els had won his last three events - the Nedbank Challenge last year and the first two US Tour events in Hawaii in 2003 - and was as short as 7/4 to make it four in a row at Laguna National.

The Open champion began the day two shots clear of the field and briefly stretched his advantage to three strokes with a birdie on the second.

Playing partner Zhang would not give up the chase however and promptly birdied the next two holes to reduce the gap to one shot. Both players then birdied the seventh before Els three-putted the eighth for a bogey and fall back into a share of the lead at 11 under.

By now it had developed into something of a two-horse race and both Zhang and Els made a hash of the par-five 11th, finding water with their second shots and each making six.

Els re-established his lead with a superb iron shot to 10 feet to set up a birdie on the 12th, but again three-putted on the 14th to allow Zhang back on level terms.

Zhang appeared to have blown his chance when he bogeyed the treacherous par-three 17th, but Els hit a wayward drive on the last that bounced off a cart path, then a tree, before settling in the rough.

From there he could only come up short of the green while Zhang fired a superb approach over the flag to five feet. Els hit a fine chip to a similar distance but hit his putt too firmly over a spike mark on his line, and Zhang made no such mistake.

Meanwhile Khan birdied the last to finish joint fourth and make a good start to his bid to avoid a 10th trip to the qualifying school this year.

"I only found out on Sunday that I was in the tournament so it felt a bonus to be here and I thought at the start of the week I would love to finish in the top five to qualify for the next tournament in Melbourne," said the 30-year-old from Essex.

"I played there at the start of my career in 1994/95 on their tour and loved it down there and I'm looking forward to going back.

"I said to myself at the start of the year not to look at money lists because you start to watch what other guys are doing, but this is a big help.

"I played well at the tour school at the end of last year and thought I just needed to carry that on and keep improving."

Collated totals (Gbr & Irl unless stated):

(x) denotes amateurs

278 Lian-Wei Zhang (Chn) 68 71 69 70 (£92,747)

279 Ernie Els (Rsa) 69 67 70 73 (£61,831)

280 Prayad Marksaeng (Tha) 73 67 68 71 (£34,835)

281 Simon Khan 66 73 72 70, Maarten Lafeber (Ned) 70 72 69 70 (£25,709 each)

283 Rick Gibson (Can) 68 76 71 68, Andrew Marshall 67 73 73 70, Per Nyman (Swe) 68 76 67 72

284 Fran Quinn (USA) 71 70 71 72

285 Dean Robertson 70 72 75 68, Thongchai Jaidee (Tha) 73 71 71 70, Markus Brier (Aut) 69 71 74 71, Jean-Francois Lucquin (Fra) 73 69 72 71, Arjun Atwal (Ind) 67 70 76 72, Simon Yates 68 69 72 76

286 Daniel Chopra (Swe) 65 77 72 72, James Kingston (Rsa) 70 70 72 74, Jean-Francois Remesy (Fra) 73 69 70 74

287 Ted Purdy (USA) 69 71 74 73, Kenneth Ferrie 71 73 70 73, Mads Vibe-Hastrup (Den) 71 72 71 73, Thammanoon Srirot (Tha) 70 69 73 75, Nick O'Hern (Aus) 71 72 69 75, Mark Pilkington 70 72 69 76

288 Mardan Mamat (Sin) 70 70 76 72, Wook-Soon Kang (Kor) 71 69 74 74, Jan Are Larsen (Nor) 71 70 73 74, John Bickerton 68 73 73 74, Keng-Chi Lin (Tpe) 71 71 72 74, Fredrik Widmark (Swe) 69 72 72 75, David Lynn 73 72 74 69

289 Wei-Tze Yeh (Tpe) 69 72 75 73, Eddie Lee (Nzl) 74 68 73 74, Brad Kennedy (Aus) 75 70 72 72, Joon Chung (Kor) 72 72 73 72, Stephen Leaney (Aus) 70 75 73 71, Paul Broadhurst 66 79 75 69

290 Wen Teh Lu (Tpe) 67 77 72 74, David Park 67 75 74 74, Kyi Hla Han (Mya) 70 73 72 75, Jyoti Randhawa (Ind) 70 69 78 73, Gustavo Rojas (Arg) 67 74 76 73, Stephen Dodd 70 71 73 76, Gary Murphy 70 68 81 71

291 James Oh (Kor) 71 69 76 75, Hendrik Buhrmann (Rsa) 72 73 72 74, Philip Archer 73 72 73 73, Chih-Bang Lam (Sin) 69 70 72 80, Anthony Kang (Kor) 71 73 75 72, Santiago Luna (Spa) 72 71 78 70, Richard Green (Aus) 72 72 78 69

292 Benn Barham 65 78 75 74, Nick Dougherty 68 74 76 74, Jason Knutzon (USA) 69 74 76 73

293 Gregory Hanrahan (USA) 66 75 74 78, Des Terblanche (Rsa) 72 73 73 75, Kevin Na (Kor) 70 72 78 73

294 Craig Kamps (Rsa) 72 72 73 77, Matthew Blackey 72 72 78 72

295 Gerry Norquist (USA) 71 70 76 78, Amandeep Johl (Ind) 72 73 75 75, Andrew Pitts (USA) 72 72 76 75, Marten Olander (Swe) 71 72 80 72

296 Henrik Bjornstad (Nor) 70 72 76 78, Soren Kjeldsen (Den) 75 69 75 77

297 Jeev Milkha Singh (Ind) 66 71 80 80, Euan Little 69 74 75 79, Simon Wakefield 75 69 78 75

299 Chris Williams 68 76 73 82, Julien Van Hauwe (Fra) 70 74 77 78, Gary Evans 73 71 81 74

300 Klas Eriksson (Swe) 74 71 75 80, Jarrod Moseley (Aus) 76 68 79 77, Lee S James 68 74 81 77

302 Thaworn Wiratchant (Tha) 73 72 80 77

303 Pablo Del Olmo (Mex) 71 74 78 80

306 Eng-Wah Poh (Sin) 71 72 84 79

307 Edward Loar (USA) 75 70 78 84

Withdrawn: Anders Hansen (Den)