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Women show - briefly - they too can provide real theatre

The European team celebrate their Solheim Cup victory © Getty Images

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If people think women's tennis struggles to make an impression compared to the men's equivalent, then perhaps they'd do well to consider the plight of women's golf.

Female golfers don't even get four tournaments a year where the (vast) prize money is equal to that awarded to the men. Instead they get a tour of limited commercial and public interest that has, in recent times at least, been dominated on the biggest stages by just one player - Yani Tseng, who hardly has any international profile despite being effectively the female coming of Tiger Woods.

Women's golf has become an afterthought, struggling on blindly in a post-Annika Sorenstam wasteland. Yet, despite all that, on Sunday it managed to produce one of the most dramatic and exciting finishes in the history of the sport, regardless of gender.

Suzann Pettersen was just a number of heroines for Alison Nicholas' European team, as she fought back against Michelle Wie in one of a handful of crucial comeback singles wins to ensure the hosts at Killeen Castle somehow managed to pluck a 15-13 victory when, at more than one point during the afternoon, almost all hope appeared to have been lost.

"I don't know. I seemed to be able to dig it out, but I seemed to get older every time it happens," Pettersen said afterwards, reflecting on her birdie-birdie-birdie finish that still wouldn't have been enough to win her match if Wie had found the pressure too much down the last. "I don't know I think I have more gray hair than when I started today, but this is just fantastic."

The quality of golf over the three days was not necessarily what all armchair golf fans will have become accustomed to (although those who regularly get out on the course might have recognised a few of the duffed chips and embarrassing shanks), but by the end things came to the boil quite nicely.

If professional sport invariably comes down to a battle of wills - an ability to keep performing when the pressure reaches otherwise unbearable levels - then you could have asked for little more.

Couples gets it wrong

Bill Haas won big money © Getty Images

• Fred Couples had a decision to make this week, as he pencilled in the final name on his 12-man United States team for the Presidents Cup. Couples has two captain's picks but only one was still free (after he announced Tiger Woods would get it weeks ago), leaving him with the unenviable choice between US PGA winner Keegan Bradley and FedEx Cup champ Bill Haas for the final spot.
  
• Many have criticised Couples' insistence on picking Woods - even before it created this scenario - but in reality everyone would have done it, due to commercial pressures as much as anything. Woods remains a huge draw in the game, while the Presidents Cup is still desperately trying to boost its cachet (whether NBA star Michael Jordan's status as an assistant captain helps or hinders that is open for debate) - so it's not hard to conclude that sponsors and organisers lobbied intently for Woods to be included, regardless of the state of his game.
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  The fact Woods would already be in Australia for the Australian Open the week after made things straightforward (if he was not in the area, would he really have been that bothered to come and play?), but it has now made Couples' last choice that much harder. Cases can be made for either player but surely it should have been Bradley who joined him, not Haas. A major is a big deal and, with another win to his credit this year, he had earned further recognition it for his displays over the course of 2011 (he almost certainly would have qualified automatically if he'd been on the tour in 2010 too). Haas, meanwhile, had about 11.4 million reasons not to be too down-hearted if he missed out.
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  Instead, he will have to prove on the course he warrants his latest piece of good fortune.

The clutch performances began with Cristel Boeljon - the 24-year-old Dutch rookie who played one of the finest shots you could ever hope to see at the 18th, with her match only narrowly in a favour. From the middle of the fairway, but with mud caked across one side of her ball, the fearless Boeljon hit a mid-iron to within six feet of the pin, a shot enough to guarantee her a singles point.

Pettersen followed suit in what was undoubtedly the highest quality match of the afternoon before another rookie, Caroline Hedwall, launched her own comeback against Ryann O'Toole.

Hedwall - the Swede who has taken the European ladies' tour by storm, and even won the PowerPlay tournament at Celtic Manor against the likes of Ian Poulter earlier this year - has been a revelation in 2011, but then so too has O'Toole. A contestant on the Golf Channel's reality show 'Big Break' not so long ago, O'Toole made the most of some sponsors' invites she got as a result of her (ultimately unsuccessful) appearance and managed to turn that into a place on the LPGA Tour and, to widespread surprise, then a wildcard place on Rosie Jones' team.

She impressed all week but in the end Hedwall broke her - coming back from two-down with two to play to secure a half with some precise and unrelenting shots. That, coupled with Azahara Munoz's guaranteed half against Angela Stanford from the final match of the event, enabled Europe to celebrate an unlikely victory.

Hedwall, O'Toole and the rest proved over the weekend that they have both the ability and - perhaps equally importantly - the back-stories to attract interest, given the right platform. But such sporting theatre once every two years will not be enough to rebuild the game as a commercial entity.

Somehow, in some way, a way needs to be found for such drama to be recreated more regularly, in individual events.

The basic ingredients are evidently there. Now it's up to the tour, the players and organisers to find the right recipe to allow women's golf to make more of an impact.

A defining week in store for Lewis

It's only Tom Lewis's second week as a professional, but it could prove an extremely important one. The former amateur had a generally impressive start on his first appearance in the pro ranks, finishing in the top ten, but now heads to St Andrews with a real chance to make the money he requires to earn his tour card for 2011.

That's how Rory McIlroy completed the trick in 2007, thanks to his third placed finish. Lewis really needs to do something similar - as not until November will he even have a chance of playing in a tournament with as big a prize fund.

Lewis earned just under £15,000 from his top ten finish in Austria, not even 10% of what he will require to earn his tour card outright. With just six invites still at his disposal, he actually needs to up his earning. This week's Dunhill Links Championship offers the chance to do so (he'd earn nearer £65,000 for another tenth place finish), while matching McIlroy's third of 2007 would almost certainly put him over the finish line before his race has really got going.

That's the reward on offer for the 20-year-old. The risk, however, is that he misses the cut (heaven forbid) and leaves himself needing two or three top five finishes in forthcoming events to have a chance of reaching his goal. Lewis will know all this, of course, so this week is a great chance to measure the true quality of his golf game - and the real nature of his psyche.

© ESPN Sports Media Ltd.