A week that had its really low moments for Paul Casey ended on a real high in Seville on Sunday when he and Luke Donald gave England only their second golfing World Cup triumph - almost a year to the day after the Rugby World Cup was lifted.

Casey, now full of regret for saying after the Ryder Cup that Americans infuriated him and he felt "hate" for them, sank the winning putt and seven previous ones for birdie as Spain's Sergio Garcia and Miguel Angel Jimenez were beaten by one.

It earned the former Walker Cup-winning partners cheques for £377,317, and for Casey it came a day after his ball and club sponsors announced they were not going to renew their contract with him at the end of the year.

They finished with a 31-under-par total of 257 and, remarkably, did better in the two rounds of foursomes - both 64s - than they did in fourballs.

"A friend sent a text message saying that a year ago tomorrow 15 men came back with a World Cup, and that was inspiration for us," said Donald.

Casey, who in contrast has received a number of "nasty" e-mails criticising him for what he said, added: "I am very happy with the way I handled myself. I've not enjoyed what happened this week, and it's definitely affected me.

"I feel it's been unfair, and it will possibly make me a stronger player - thick-skinned as well. I hope the crowds in America [his next tournament is in Hawaii in January] will be very receptive - but I don't know whether they will be. I'm worried about it.

"I'll probably try to repair any damage I can."

England's only win in 49 previous stagings of the event was in 1998 when Nick Faldo and David Carter swept to victory in New Zealand.

Only 12 of the world's 50 players - and none of the top seven - took part. But Donald and Casey beat four of their Ryder Cup team-mates to the title, 1997 winners Padraig Harrington and Paul McGinley finishing third for Ireland.

"I can't explain it, but we just clicked," said Casey after the last-day foursomes.

It was Donald's debut in the event - but Casey has now finished fifth, third, second and first.

As on Friday it finished with their only bogey - but having been three clear with a hole to go, Garcia and Jimenez's birdie was to no avail when Casey holed from three feet.

Spain had come from six down to lead by one with 18 holes to play, but Donald opened with an 18-foot birdie putt and then Casey took over. He found the target on the fourth, fifth, seventh and ninth and started for home by holing efforts from 40, 22 and 12 feet.

At that stage England were four in front. But Spain and Ireland both eagled the long 13th, and when Jimenez almost sank his approach to the 15th the gap was back to one.

However, Garcia hit their second shot into water on the long 16th and then missed a five-foot par putt - whereas Donald found the green and made a short birdie putt.

"I thought we were out of it then, but at least we made them win it," said Garcia.

"It was gutsy - Paul knocked it straight in the middle.

"Our six under was a flipping good score, but not good enough. You have to give a lot of credit to the England team - to come out for the World Cup and manage to shoot eight under is a great effort."

Jimenez refused to blame his partner for what happened on the 16th.

"In golf you have to take the risk - I was the first to say he had to go for it," he said.

"We are human."

The Irish pair matched England's outward 31 and were in with a real chance when Harrington made a 30-foot eagle putt on the 13th and McGinley rolled home a five-footer for birdie on the next. But they covered the final four holes in one over, bogeying the 226-yard 17th after Harrington found sand.

Welsh pair Phillip Price and Bradley Dredge ended up in a tie for 10th place after a real mixed bag of a 71 - an eagle, four birdies and five bogeys.

Far from ending Scotland's wait for their first ever win in the event, Alastair Forsyth and Scott Drummond finished a lowly 18th of the 24 nations. They were 14 under par for fourballs, but only level par for 36 holes of foursomes compared to England's 16 under.

A crowd of more than 15,000 watched the day's play - and four days after the racist chants at the soccer in Madrid, Casey and Donald had only good words to say about them.

"They even clapped when I repaired a Spanish pitch-mark," said Casey.

Collated final totals in the World Golf Championships-World Cup at the Real Club de Sevilla, Seville, Spain

(par 72):

257 England (Luke Donald, Paul Casey) 61 64 68 64 (£754,635)

258 Spain (Miguel Angel Jimenez, Sergio Garcia) 63 68 61 66 (£377,317)

260 Ireland (Padraig Harrington, Paul McGinley) 60 71 64 65 (£215,610)

263 South Africa (Rory Sabbatini, Trevor Immelman) 66 65 64 68 (£107,805)

265 Austria (Martin Wiegele, Markus Brier) 60 70 68 67, Netherlands (Robert-Jan Derksen, Maarten Lafeber) 65 69 63 68

267 Germany (Kariem Baraka, Marcel Siem) 64 69 66 68, Sweden (Joakim Haeggman, Fredrik Jacobson) 64 67 64 72, United States (Scott Verplank, Bob Tway) 64 67 64 72

269 South Korea (Kim Dae-sub, Shin Yong-jin) 65 70 64 70, Wales (Phillip Price, Bradley Dredge) 65 69 64 71, Australia (Stephen Leaney, Nick O'Hern) 64 68 65 72, Japan (Shigeki Maruyama, Hidemichi Tanaka) 62 69 65 73

270 Denmark (Anders Hansen, Soren Kjeldsen) 64 73 67 66

272 New Zealand (David Smail, Craig Perks) 69 73 62 68, France (Thomas Levet, Raphael Jacquelin) 68 68 66 70

273 Italy (Alessandro Tadini, Andrea Maestroni) 70 71 64 68

274 Scotland (Alastair Forsyth, Scott Drummond) 64 72 66 72

276 Argentina (Eduardo Romero, Angel Cabrera) 70 71 65 70

277 Canada (Darren Griff, Stuart Anderson) 68 71 65 73

280 Colombia (Jose Garrido, Manuel Merizalde) 67 73 65 75

282 Myanmar (Kyi Hla Han, Soe Kyaw Naing) 69 73 67 73

283 Chinese Taipei (Wang Ter-chang, Lu Wei-chih) 70 70 68 75

288 Mexico (Pablo Del Olmo, Alejandro Quiroz) 74 72 68 74