Charl Schwartzel wins Alfred Dunhill Championship by 12 shots

Charl Schwartzel

South African Charl Schwartzel completed a stunning finish to 2012 with a 12-stroke victory on home soil at the Alfred Dunhill Championship.

After a delay for a thunderstorm, the 28-year-old completed a three-under-par 69 final round to wrap up victory at Leopard Creek, South Africa.

His success went one better than last week's impressive 11-shot triumph at the Thailand Golf Championship.

Schwartzel said: "This has always been a special place for me."

In posting the third-biggest winning margin in the European Tour's 40-year history, Schwartzel has only been surpassed by Tiger Woods and Ernie Els, who won the 2000 US Open and 2005 Asian Open by 15 and 13 shots respectively.

He started the day 10 shots clear before opening his final round with seven successive pars.

Schwartzel's lead was down to seven when he three-putted the eighth, but he spun his approach to three feet on the ninth and hit further birdies on the 12th, 13th and the par-five 18th.

The 2011 Masters champion is now a staggering 84-under par over his last five tournaments going back to the start of November, having previously gone nearly 20 months without a win since his triumph at Augusta.

"It's nice to have continued my form from last week," added Schwartzel.

"I was saying a month and a half ago that it's been a pretty disappointing year. Slowly and surely I started to swing the club a lot better, back to how I did when I won the Masters, and I actually got excited to play again.

"It started at the SA Open and from there got better and better. It's been a pretty good year now."

Frenchman Gregory Bourdy had been Schwartzel's closest competitor for most of the tournament but a double-bogey seven on the final hole saw Swede Kristoffer Broberg snatch second place from him.

Bourdy had to share third with Scotland's Scott Jamieson, defending champion Garth Mulroy and England's Andy Sullivan, who came through the Tour qualifying school last month.