EUROPEAN TOUR NEWS: ARGENTINA'S RICARDO Gonzalez, without a top 10 finish all season, grabbed his fourth European Tour title in simply stunning fashion in Malmo yesterday.

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 Scandinavian 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 British 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.”

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 €2,000.

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 today.

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 Bjorn Öras plans to double the purse instantly to €2.5 million and within five years to make it the second-richest event in Europe after the British Open. That is currently the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth at just under €5 million.

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.