Wales' Bradley Dredge turned the final round of the Omega European Masters into a procession to claim an overdue second European Tour title.

Dredge carded a closing 67 for a 17-under-par total of 267 to cruise to an eight-shot victory, the largest winning margin of the season so far, beating the previous best of five shots by David Howell at the BMW Championship at Wentworth.

Germany's Marcel Siem and Italy's Francesco Molinari shared second place on nine under after rounds of 73 and 71 respectively.

Defending champion and part-time local resident, Sergio Garcia, began the day five shots off the lead and never threatened the leaders.

The world number eight eventually signed for a 71 to finish in a share of fourth place with Denmark's Soren Kjeldsen and Scotland's Marc Warren on eight under.

Dredge, who picked up the winner's cheque for £227,000, had finished second three times and recorded a total of 16 top-10 finishes since his previous victory in similarly mountainous terrain in the Madeira Island Open in 2003.

Numerous winning chances had gone begging but there was never any chance of a repeat in Switzerland from the moment he birdied the first three holes for the second day in succession.

On Saturday he had followed that run with a double-bogey six on the fourth after driving out of bounds, but this time made a regulation par and thereafter was able to cruise to victory, his only blemish coming with a bogey on the 16th.

"It feels really good," said the 33-year-old from Cardiff, who will partner Stephen Dodd as Wales defend their World Cup title in Barbados in December.

"I got off to a great start but I knew I had a lot of people chasing me so I tried to stay aggressive. Since the French Open this year (when he was third at halfway but faded to 17th) I decided to fire at all the flags, within reason.

"I watch all the top players like Tiger Woods, Ernie Els and Vijay Singh and they all seem to be aggressive when they can be.

"It was getting very frustrating, getting into position and not finishing off events. I felt as if I was playing good golf but shooting level par on the weekend is not going to win you many events. I came off the course and and didn't feel I had played that badly but hadn't scored well so my intention was to be more aggressive."

Dredge can now look forward to that World Cup defence from December 7-10, and joked: "Doddy and I are both high enough in the world rankings to qualify, and thankfully he's picked me!

"I had a text from him last night wishing me good luck and I told him to rest up and get ready for Barbados."

Garcia had looked set to challenge the leaders when he birdied the first but the 26-year-old then bogeyed the second and also dropped shots at the eighth, 10th and 12th.

"Definitely not my day, I started okay but then played the second badly again," admitted Garcia, the only member of the European Ryder Cup team competing.

"I struggled a little today on the greens but feel the game is solid. Bradley played awesome to shoot 17 under. I never thought at the start of the week anything like that would win here.

"Now I'm going to relax for a couple of days and then start practising. I am going back home because I don't feel like practising at this altitude will help me. I'm not going to be hitting 387-yard drives at the Ryder Cup! I'm going to work hard on my game, see if we can have another good Ryder Cup and help my team as much as possible.

"I struggled a little today on the greens but feel the game is solid. Bradley played awesome to shoot 17 under. I never thought at the start of the week anything like that would win here."

Collated final round scores and totals (Gbr & Irl unless stated, Par 71)

(x) denotes amateurs

267 Bradley Dredge 68 67 65 67 (£227,905)

275 Francesco Molinari (Ita) 68 68 70 69, Marcel Siem (Ger) 68 67 67 73 (£118,769 each)

276 Marc Warren 69 71 69 67, Soren Kjeldsen (Den) 70 69 67 70, Sergio Garcia (Spa) 68 69 68 71 (£58,070 each)

277 Mikko Ilonen (Fin) 73 67 71 66, Ariel Canete (Arg) 72 70 69 66, Cesar Monasterio (Arg) 74 69 68 66, Martin Erlandsson (Swe) 70 68 70 69, Andrew McLardy (Rsa) 70 65 71 71

278 Phillip Archer 68 72 72 66, Simon Dyson 68 74 68 68, Miles Tunnicliff 67 73 69 69, Simon Wakefield 68 75 65 70, Johan Edfors (Swe) 73 67 67 71

279 Richard McEvoy 70 72 71 66, Jose Manuel Lara (Spa) 69 72 71 67, Peter Hedblom (Swe) 71 72 69 67, Sam Little 67 73 71 68, Anthony Wall 66 73 69 71, Christian Nilsson (Swe) 71 67 69 72, Oliver Wilson 68 69 67 75

280 Eduardo Romero (Arg) 70 70 72 68, Miguel Carballo (Arg) 72 70 68 70

281 Darren Fichardt (Rsa) 71 72 72 66, Rafael Gomez (Arg) 67 70 75 69, Ricardo Gonzalez (Arg) 69 71 71 70, Gary Orr 69 73 69 70, Robert Rock 72 67 70 72, David Carter 66 74 69 72, Jean-Francois Remesy (Fra) 72 67 69 73

282 Wade Ormsby (Aus) 70 73 71 68, Andrew Marshall 68 72 71 71, Paul Broadhurst 71 69 69 73, Joakim Backstrom (Swe) 72 66 69 75

283 Miguel Angel Jimenez (Spa) 70 69 75 69, Alessandro Tadini (Ita) 69 71 71 72, Leif Westerberg (Swe) 71 71 69 72

284 Robert-Jan Derksen (Ned) 74 69 72 69, Carl Suneson (Spa) 70 70 71 73, Jarmo Sandelin (Swe) 71 67 71 75, David Bransdon (Aus) 68 71 68 77

285 Matthew Millar (Aus) 70 69 74 72, Robert Coles 66 72 73 74, Graeme McDowell 71 71 69 74, Brett Rumford (Aus) 71 71 64 79

286 Raphael Jacquelin (Fra) 74 69 72 71, Jamie Spence 72 69 72 73, Marc Farry (Fra) 70 73 68 75, David Higgins 71 72 66 77

287 Peter Lawrie 74 69 72 72

288 Philip Golding 71 72 75 70, Andrew Butterfield 68 74 73 73, Gary Clark 73 70 72 73

289 Ignacio Garrido (Spa) 71 68 75 75, Tom Whitehouse 71 70 72 76

290 James Kingston (Rsa) 71 71 75 73

291 Agustin Domingo (Spa) 68 73 76 74, Gonzalo Fernandez-Castano (Spa) 70 70 76 75, Michael Hoey 72 71 73 75

292 Gregory Havret (Fra) 72 71 79 70, Anders Hansen (Den) 71 69 76 76

293 Francois Delamontagne (Fra) 71 71 74 77

295 David Lynn 72 71 74 78