Bradley Dredge and Stephen Dodd became World Cup winners for Wales on Sunday - without hitting a ball.

Torrential rain on Portugal's Algarve washed out play and with a forecast of more to come it was decided that the position after 54 holes would be the result.

For Dredge and Dodd that meant a two-stroke victory over defending champions England - Luke Donald and David Howell - and Swedes Henrik Stenson and Niclas Fasth.

And it also meant their biggest ever pay-day. Each of them walked away with cheques for £400,870 to provide a rich finish to what was already the most lucrative season of both players' careers.

Wales won with Ian Woosnam and David Llewellyn as their pairing in Hawaii in 1987. That was achieved in very different circumstances, a play-off with Scots Sandy Lyle and Sam Torrance being needed to decided the issue.

This time it was Dredge and Dodd's play over the final four holes of Saturday's third round which determined the outcome, although they did not know it at the time.

A 20-foot eagle putt from Dredge on the 15th took them from one behind England to one ahead and Dodd's two-putt birdie at the long 17th - after Dredge had hit into the lake - doubled the gap.

Dredge was also in water on the 18th, but Dodd's solid par four kept their advantage and ultimately won them the crown with a 27-under-par total of 189.

(Par 72, final round cancelled because of rain):

189 Wales (Bradley Dredge, Stephen Dodd) 61 67 61 (£801,740)

191 England (David Howell, Luke Donald) 59 69 63, Sweden (Henrik Stenson, Niclas Fasth) 61 67 63 (£314,969 each)

194 France (Raphael Jacquelin, Thomas Levet) 63 70 61 (£114,534)

195 Denmark (Anders Hansen, Soren Hansen) 64 68 63 (£83,037)

196 Netherlands (Robert-Jan Derksen, Maarten Lafeber) 63 67 66, Argentina (Ricardo Gonzalez, Angel Cabrera) 68 61 67

197 Germany (Christian Reimbold, Alex Cejka) 65 68 64

198 India (Arjun Atwal, Jyoti Randhawa) 60 73 65

199 Spain (Miguel Angel Jimenez) 62 72 65, Taiwan (Wang Ter-chang), Chang Tse-peng) 62 71 66

200 South Africa (Tim Clark, Trevor Immelman) 68 67 65, South Korea (KJ Choi, Jang Ik-je) 67 71 62, Ireland (Padraig Harrington, Paul McGinley) 67 69 64

201 Japan (Takua Taniguchi, Yasuharu Imano) 63 70 68, Paraguay (Marco Ruiz, Carlos Franco) 63 73 65

202 Mexico (Alex Quiroz, Pablo del Olmo) 67 71 64, Australia (Mark Hensby, Peter Lonard) 60 73 69, United States (Zach Johnson, Stewart Cink) 65 70 67

203 Portugal (Jose-Filipe Lima, Antonio Sobrinho) 68 72 63, Scotland (Scott Drummond, Stephen Gallacher) 65 74 64, Singapore (Mardan Mamat, Lam Chih-bing) 67 70 66

209 Colombia (Eduardo Herrera, Diego Vanegas) 66 74 69

210 Venezuela (Manuel Bermudez, Carlos Larrain) 66 75 69