The genius that is Tiger Woods shone bright in Heidelberg again on Sunday to give him a phenomenal 26th victory in his last 51 starts.

Not even the breaking of his favourite driver while practising on Saturday night could stop the world number one, the first man ever to hold all four major titles at the same time, from winning the Deutsche Bank-SAP Open on the same St Leon Rot course where he dominated two years ago.

A 175-yard seven-iron straight into the 13th hole for an eagle two was the shot that will linger longest and which effectively decided a superb battle with New Zealander Michael Campbell for the massive £278,024 first prize.

Massive to everyone except Woods, that is. His career winnings are now approaching £20million - and with contracts and appearance fees like the £1.4million he is reported to have received here you can only guess what his total earnings are.

Having been 10 off the lead at halfway - he once beat Ernie Els from 11 back - Woods resumed one behind Argentina's Eduardo Romero thanks to his Saturday 63, eagled the par five first and went on to score a closing 66 for a comfortable four-stroke win.

The 25-year-old, who finished with a 22-under-par total of 266, thus recorded his 36th pro win.

But it is the regularity of his success over the past two seasons which is more stunning than anything.

Compare his 26 wins in 51 starts to greats like Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer and Tom Watson.

Nicklaus won 70 of his 576 US Tour events, Palmer 60 out of 727 and Watson "only" 34 out of 567.

Campbell, who had been seven clear of the field with 35 holes to play, regained top spot with an outward 34, but after matching Woods's birdies at the 11th and 12th he was left wondering what on earth he had to do when Woods came up with his wonder shot - one which required the edge of the hole to be repaired because he had pitched into it.

Woods followed with a 12-foot birdie putt at the 15th and safely avoided the sort of mess-up that cost him victory on his last visit to the European Tour in Dubai in March.

On the eve of the tournament Campbell had a premonition that he and Woods would finish in the 20s under par.

At halfway he was 17 under and Woods seven, but it was Woods who got there.

Dane Soren Kjeldsen and Australian Peter O'Malley shared third spot a stroke further back, with Scot Andrew Coltart, Ireland's Padraig Harrington and Swede Mikael Lundberg joint fifth.

Unknown to the thousands of spectators, Woods had been forced to switch drivers before the round.

The saga began when he broke the only driver he had brought to Europe with him at the end of his post-third round practice session. The head of the club flew around 50 metres down the range.

"He normally has a spare on hand, but not this time," said manager Mark Steinberg.

Instead tournament officials were asked if they could find a local supplier of shafts.

"It took 50 to 60 telephone calls and two hours before we got what Tiger wanted," said press officer Nikolai Laude.

"We phoned him at around 11pm to tell him it had been delivered and would be ready for today.

"The clubhead on the driver Tiger broke looks pretty well used and I think he wanted to keep using it with a new shaft."

That was not the end of the story, though. It was too long when it was first fixed to the clubhead this morning and in the re-fixing it was broken, so with no time to get another, the decision was then made to switch to one of the same make belonging to Australian Adam Scott.

Nobody would have guessed in Woods's playing of the 540-yard first. His opening drive was a beauty, his iron finished 10 feet from the flag and in went the putt for his fourth eagle of the week.

Romero hooked into some horrible rough, had to take a penalty drop and ran up a six to lose the lead. He was never to get it back.

Defending champion Lee Westwood recorded the joint worst score of the day with his 77 and finished down on four under, but Darren Clarke, six over during his second round and ready to go home, charged back to end the week nine under and Colin Montgomerie was 13 under on the eve of his bid for a record fifth successive Volvo PGA win at Wentworth.

At least Woods won't be there to thwart him. Meanwhile, German Alex Cejka may find himself being spoken to by the European tour after playing the last round in a Bayern Munich shirt the day following their clinching of the Bundesliga.

Woods told Sky Sports: "I knew the course was playing very difficult. I was just grinding my way out there to just put myself on the fairways and the greens."

Woods felt one part of his game in particular had contributed to his remarkable comeback victory.

He added: "My short game has felt good all week and I have been working on it and it felt really good."

Referring to his incredible eagle two at the 13th, where he holed a 175-yard seven-iron, Woods said: "I wanted to use a seven and just let it rip. No-one did anything for a split second and all of a sudden it went nuts."

Collated final scores and totals (Gbr and Irl unless stated, par 72):

266 T Woods (USA) 69 68 63 66 (£278,024)

270 M Campbell (Nzl) 62 65 73 70 (£185,349)

271 S Kjeldsen (Den) 70 67 69 65, P O'Malley (Aus) 71 68 63 69 (£93,913 each)

273 M Lundberg (Swe) 69 69 69 66, A Coltart 68 69 68 68, P Harrington 70 69 64 70

274 N O'Hern (Aus) 69 69 66 70, H Stenson (Swe) 71 68 63 72

275 J Bickerton 69 67 73 66, P McGinley 69 65 72 69, C Montgomerie 70 66 69 70, R Green (Aus) 68 69 69 69

276 P Baker 71 70 68 67, R Gonzalez (Arg) 73 67 68 68, P Price 71 70 66 69, MA Jimenez (Spa) 69 69 68 70, R Goosen (Rsa) 72 68 64 72, E Romero (Arg) 66 67 66 77

278 G Turner (Nzl) 71 71 69 67, P Lonard (Aus) 70 71 68 69, A Cabrera (Arg) 69 70 68 71, W Bennett 68 70 67 73

279 T Levet (Fra) 74 67 72 66, D Clarke 76 67 69 67, D Fichardt (Rsa) 71 69 70 69, G Rojas (Arg) 66 72 69 72 280 J Rose 70 69 73 68, I Woosnam 66 72 73 69, P Sjoland (Swe) 71 70 70 69, G Owen 68 70 72 70, M Gronberg (Swe) 69 68 72 71, E Els (Rsa) 66 71 72 71, MA Martin (Spa) 69 70 69 72, D Lee 70 68 69 73, P Eales 68 71 66 75

281 P Mitchell 74 67 73 67, P Lawrie 72 70 69 70, R Karlsson (Swe) 71 71 69 70, M McNulty (Zim) 69 73 68 71, D Robertson 69 68 72 72, L Parsons (Aus) 66 75 68 72

282 N Fasth (Swe) 74 69 71 68, A Hansen (Den) 74 69 70 69, C Suneson (Spa) 67 76 70 69, A Scott (Aus) 74 68 70 70

283 A Raitt 70 69 75 69, B Langer (Ger) 72 71 70 70, A Wall 72 71 69 71, S Hansen (Den) 70 73 66 74, S Tinning (Den) 70 70 68 75 284 I Garbutt 73 70 70 71, J Senden (Aus) 70 71 72 71, J Moseley (Aus) 72 71 68 73, M Mackenzie 71 69 69 75, L Westwood 66 71 70 77 285 J-F Remesy (Fra) 75 66 75 69, T Dier (Ger) 71 71 74 69, C Hanell (Swe) 70 73 70 72, JM Olazabal (Spa) 70 71 71 73, J Sandelin (Swe) 70 69 70 76, O Edmond (Fra) 71 67 71 76

286 D Park 73 69 75 69, J Spence 71 71 72 72, M Farry (Fra) 70 70 73 73, G Orr 71 71 71 73, B Davis 70 69 71 76

287 C Cevaer (Fra) 72 69 75 71, D Borrego (Spn) 71 72 73 71

288 E Darcy 71 72 74 71, D Smyth 74 69 71 74, A Cejka (Ger) 73 68 73 74

289 T Bjorn (Den) 67 75 71 76, E Canonica (Ita) 72 71 69 77

292 M Ilonen (Fin) 71 72 72 77