Argentina's Ricardo Gonzalez, without a top-10 finish all season, grabbed his fourth European Tour title in simply stunning fashion in Malmo.

Five birdies in the final six holes - and this on the longest course in Tour history - gave the 39-year-old a two-stroke victory over Welshman Jamie Donaldson at the SAS Masters.

The last two of them will live long in his memory.

First Gonzalez holed a difficult bunker shot at Barseback's 459-yard 17th and then, after hooking into the trees down the 437-yard last, he threaded his nine-iron approach through a nine foot gap and hit it to within five feet of the flag.

"Incredible," he said after signing for a four-under-par 69 and 10-under total of 282.

"It's been a hard year, but I was fighting, fighting, fighting. I had the feeling that you can always make it if you work hard and never lose faith.

"I don't know whether the shot on the last was luck or just brilliant!"

Gonzalez, whose last victory on the circuit was five years ago, also earned himself a nickname at last.

Compatriots Angel Cabrera and Eduardo Romero have long been known as "The Duck" and "The Cat".

Gonzalez is now "El Hombre del Hacha" - "The Axeman" - because after missing out on The Open he returned to his farm south of Buenos Aires and helped with the chopping down of trees.

Donaldson has still to win a Tour title nine years after partnering Paul Casey and Luke Donald to second place in the world amateur team championship.

But the 33-year-old was feeling good rather than bad about this near miss after witnessing what Gonzalez did.

"I had only 21 putts and didn't do anything wrong," he said after his joint best-of-the-day 68.

Donaldson's one previous second place was in Portugal in 2003 and he remembered: "Fredrik Jacobson had three chip-ins on the back nine and beat me by one."

Gonzalez earned £142,938 and Donaldson £95,294, while third place went to Denmark's Jeppe Huldahl, winner of the Wales Open early last month.

Huldahl led by three at the turn as overnight leader Marcus Fraser struggled on his 31st birthday, but bogeyed the 10th and 11th and dropped further shots at the last two as well.

Pre-tournament favourite Henrik Stenson could not get inspired by playing on his home course all week and with two closing double bogeys for a 76 finished down in 73rd place on 10 over.

Stenson had pledged his prize money to his new Foundation charity and hoped, of course, it would be a six-figure sum. Instead it was less than £1,300.

Winning could have taken him back to his career-high fourth in the world, but even as it is he is set to move up from seventh to fifth tomorrow.

That was the good news for him. The good news for a tournament which, in terms of prize money, has slumped from seventh on the European Tour a decade ago to outside the top 40 is that new life is about to be breathed into it.

Next year it moves to Bro Hof near Stockholm, the new course designed by Robert Trent Jones Jnr which is Sweden's candidate for the 2018 Ryder Cup.

Owner Bjrn rs plans to double the purse instantly to £1.7million and within five years to make it the second richest event in Europe after The Open. That is currently the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth at just under £4million.

That should attract a better field. Stenson was the only member of last year's Ryder Cup side to take part this year and not one of the top 10 finishers was inside the world's top 200.

Collated final round scores & totals

(Gbr & Irl unless stated, par 73):

282 Ricardo Gonzalez (Arg) 68 68 77 69

284 Jamie Donaldson 71 72 73 68

286 Jeppe Huldahl (Den) 72 70 70 74

288 Lee Slattery 67 70 75 76, Nathan T Smith (USA) 75 71 71 71, Jacob Olesen (Den) 73 72 75 68, Martin Erlandsson (Swe) 70 70 72 76, Marcus Higley 72 71 70 75, Oskar Henningsson (Swe) 70 72 73 73, Marcus Fraser (Aus) 72 69 70 77

289 Danny Willett 71 72 76 70

290 Joakim Haeggman (Swe) 74 70 72 74, Soren Kjeldsen (Den) 72 71 75 72, Christian Nilsson (Swe) 72 71 73 74, Gareth Maybin 72 73 72 73, Robert Dinwiddie 74 70 75 71

291 Jean-Baptiste Gonnet (Fra) 73 71 70 77, Niclas Fasth (Swe) 72 71 73 75, Pelle Edberg (Swe) 72 73 73 73, Tano Goya (Arg) 69 74 75 73, Klas Eriksson (Swe) 69 78 73 71, David Lynn 73 73 71 74, Jesper Parnevik (Swe) 74 71 72 74

292 Mikael Lundberg (Swe) 73 74 70 75, Richie Ramsay 70 70 77 75, Richard S Johnson (Swe) 74 70 75 73

293 Robert Jan Derksen (Ned) 77 71 71 74, Maarten Lafeber (Ned) 72 75 75 71, Peter Lawrie 73 71 75 74, Pablo Larrazabal (Spa) 69 71 74 79, Marc Cayeux (Zim) 74 69 76 74, Joel Sjoholm (Swe) 73 72 71 77, Anders Sjostrand (Swe) 72 69 75 77, Wade Ormsby (Aus) 72 72 70 79

294 Brett Rumford (Aus) 70 75 74 75, John Mellor 76 70 77 71, Alejandro Canizares (Spa) 71 74 70 79

295 Gary Murphy 71 74 75 75, Steve Webster 71 73 76 75, Mikko Ilonen (Fin) 75 72 73 75, Sam Little 72 75 69 79, James Driscoll (USA) 73 74 73 75

296 Mattias Eliasson (Swe) 73 72 75 76, Francois Delamontagne (Fra) 73 75 75 73, Simon Dyson 75 72 73 76, Raphael Jacquelin (Fra) 76 69 73 78, Michael Hoey 72 74 74 76, Johan Edfors (Swe) 74 73 74 75

297 Callum Macaulay 73 72 74 78, Alvaro Velasco (Spa) 77 70 75 75, Phillip Archer 75 73 76 73, Pablo Martin (Spa) 69 75 74 79

298 Peter Hanson (Swe) 74 73 75 76, Damien McGrane 73 71 76 78, Alessandro Tadini (Ita) 74 74 73 77, Ignacio Garrido (Spa) 73 72 78 75, Fredrik Andersson Hed (Swe) 74 72 75 77

299 Richard Bland 74 72 77 76, Magnus A Carlsson (Swe) 71 71 79 78, Peter O'Malley (Aus) 74 70 77 78, Simon Khan 74 74 76 75

300 Michael Campbell (Nzl) 78 70 73 79, Ake Nilsson (Rsa) 75 73 75 77, Andrew Coltart 76 71 74 79, Marcel Siem (Ger) 71 74 80 75, Rafael Cabrera Bello (Spa) 74 74 75 77

301 Joakim Rask (Swe) 75 73 74 79, Will MacKenzie (USA) 73 74 76 78, Robert Rock 73 73 76 79, Antti Ahokas (Fin) 74 73 79 75, Bernd Wiesberger (Aut) 74 72 78 77, Bradley Dredge 76 72 80 73

302 Per Barth (Swe) 75 73 72 82, Fabrizio Zanotti (Par) 78 70 76 78, Henrik Stenson (Swe) 73 74 79 76

303 Niklas Bruzelius (Swe) 78 70 77 78

305 Christopher Doak 74 73 78 80

309 Branden Grace (Rsa) 70 78 81 80