Nicolas Colsaerts beats Graeme McDowell on the final green to win the Volvo World Match Play Championship.

Nicolas Colsaerts beat Graeme McDowell on the final green to win the Volvo World Match Play Championship.

In blustery conditions at Finca Cortesin, the Belgian bomber continued his remarkable record in Volvo-sponsored events. Since winning his maiden European Tour title at the Volvo China Open in 2011 he has finished third at last year’s Volvo World Match Play, fourth at the Volvo Golf Champions and second at the 2012 Volvo China Open.

But he was pushed all the way by McDowell, Europe’s 2010 Ryder Cup hero, who levelled the contest three times on the front nine and twice halved a two-hole deficit after the turn.

Colsaerts, who knocked McDowell out at the quarter-final stage last year, won on the last after a game in which he was ahead on four separate occasions.

His performance takes him into the Official World Golf Ranking's top 50 for the first time and lifts him into an automatic qualifying place for The Ryder Cup.

The European Tour’s longest hitter had come from four down after four to beat Scot Paul Lawrie at the 20th in the morning semi-finals, while McDowell got the better of Spain's Rafael Cabrera-Bello on the last.