OMEGA Mission Hills World Cup: Final-round notes

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Miguel Angel Jimenez and Pablo Larrazabal secured a second-place finish with a 70 in the final round.

• Sunday's play was foursomes (alternate shot). The tournament also used that format in the second round. In the first and third rounds, fourball was the format.

• Sweden, with Robert Karlsson and Henrik Stenson, picked up its second OMEGA Mission Hills World Cup title when it defeated Spain by three strokes. The first Swedish World Cup title came in 1991 when Per-Ulrik Johansson and Anders Forsbrand teamed to defeat the Wales team of Phillip Price and Ian Woosnam by one stroke in Rome, Italy. The following year, the same Swedish team was runner-up to the U.S. team of Fred Couples and Davis Love III. The only other runner-up finish in Sweden World Cup history came in 2005 when Stenson paired with Niclas Fasth. Sweden entered the final round two strokes behind Wales, but inclement weather forced cancellation of Sunday play and Wales was declared the winner at the Victoria Clube de Golfe in Vilamoura, Portugal.

• On Friday in the first day of foursomes play, Spain had five birdies and an eagle on its front nine. In the final round, again featuring foursomes, Spain didn't record its first birdie until the seventh hole and managed only two more the rest of the way against one bogey.

• Spain (Miguel Angel Jimenez and Pablo Larrazabal), which led after the second and third rounds, shot a 70 Sunday and finished second for the sixth time in the country's World Cup history. Here is a look at all of Spain's runner-up finishes:

• Chile turned in its best World Cup finish in history with its play this week. The Chilean team of Felipe Aguilar and Mark Tullo tied for 10th. The previous-best World Cup finish by Chile came in 1992 at La Moraleja Golf Club in Madrid, Spain. That year, Guillermo Encina and Roy Mackenzie tied with Canada for 11th, 24 strokes behind the winning team of Fred Couples and Davis Love III.

• Thailand (Thongchai Jaidee and Prayad Marksaeng) improved its position each day. The Thai team was in 20th place after the first round, 18th through 36 holes, 12th after three rounds before finishing seventh. This year's team came up short in its attempt to achieve Thailand's best World Cup performance. That distinction is still held by the team of Sukree Onchum and Suchin Suwanapong, who tied for fourth in 1969 in Singapore.

• This week teams recorded 14 eagles, with the latest coming Sunday. Chile made eagle at the par-5 third hole, Thailand made eagle at the seventh and Japan made its eagle at the par-5 15th.

• Host country China shot an even-par 72 Sunday to finish at 8-under overall. Liang Wen-chong and Zhang Lian-wei tied for 17th. China's all-time best World Cup performance came a year ago when the Chinese tied for 11th.

• Low scores on the front nine Sunday came from Japan (Ryuji Imada and Toru Taniguchi) and Sweden, with 5-under 31s. The best back-nine score also came from the winning team of Sweden, which was 4-under on the back nine (32).

• The low round of the day belonged to Sweden, which had nine birdies in the alternate-shot format on its way to a 9-under 63.

• Two teams had four rounds in the 60s, led by champion Sweden (65-67-66-63). Japan (66-68-68-68) was the other team to have four sub-70 rounds at this year's OMEGA Mission Hills World Cup.

• England's Ian Poulter finished outside the top five for the first time in his three World Cup appearances. With England's 5-under 67 Sunday, Poulter and his teammate, Ross Fisher, finished sixth. In his two previous World Cup starts, Poulter had a fifth-place performance in 2001 (with Paul Casey) and a fourth-place showing in 2007 (with Justin Rose).

• The par-4 sixth hole was the most-difficult front-nine hole in the final round, yielding one birdie and 13 bogeys. The other 14 teams had pars, giving the eighth a stroke average of 4.428. Thailand was the only team to birdie that hole. The Thai team birdied Saturday's toughest hole, the par-3 eighth, as well. The toughest back-nine hole also had an identical scoring average to the sixth, with two birdies (Sweden and South Africa), 11 bogeys, one triple bogey and the rest pars.

• The Guatemalan team of Pablo Acuna and Alejandro Villavicencio, both playing in their first World Cup, shot a final-round, even-par 72 Sunday, leaving the Guatemalans in 22nd position, the best World Cup performance in the country's history. Guatemala's previous-best finish was a 30th-place showing in 1978 in Hawaii.

• Defending champion Scotland (Colin Montgomerie and Alastair Forsyth) finished with an even-par 72 Sunday. The Scots' four-day total of 7-under 281 left the 2007 winning team tied for 19th. The last time a team successfully defended its World Cup title was in 2000, when the United States' team of Tiger Woods and David Duval won the title that Woods and Mark O'Meara captured the previous year.