Paula Creamer helped the U.S. win the cup with a huge victory over Laura Davies. Warren Little/Getty Images

There's something about match play ...

You saw it again at the Solheim Cup last weekend. Match play rules, especially in a team format with close competition and spirited international rooting sections. It's not just the most exciting form of golf, it's the most entertaining. Unlike a 72-hole stroke-play event, which may or may not build to a thrilling climax (see Mark Calcavecchia's less-than-stirring back-nine string of pars to win the Bell Canadian Open). Match play has drama on every hole. Each hole is a tournament, in effect, with an outcome -- win, lose or draw. It makes for great drama, which makes for great television.

The United States scored a stirring victory over its European opponents in the Solheim Cup with a big final day in singles play. Match play means getting to see things you'd probably otherwise never see. Like the sweet-yet-brash prediction from sweet-yet-brash teen sensation Paula Creamer, who called out a U.S. victory before the event began.

Creamer, who graduated from high school last spring, symbolized the current of this Solheim Cup in her singles match. She played Laura Davies, a legend in women's golf and arguably one of the game's most talented players (although she badly underachieved due to lack of a practice ethic and an often balky driver and/or putter), and beat her like a tambourine. Creamer won resoundingly, 7 and 5, just as the Americans won six of the first seven singles matches in Sunday's finale. In a stroke play tournament, however, we'd never get a Creamer-Davies showdown. Or get to see Annika Sorenstam and Suzanne Pettersen rally from 4 down with six holes left and pull out a victory. It was scintillating stuff.

Women's golf has a new generation of stars. Many of them are American, such as Creamer, Natalie Gulbis, Christina Kim and Cristie Kerr. While plenty of old-school legends took part in this event, such as Beth Daniel, Meg Mallon, Juli Inkster, Rosie Jones, captain Nancy Lopez, Sorenstam and Davies, this Solheim marked a changing of the guard. The only players missing were amateur stars Morgan Pressel and Michelle Wie, and, wait a minute, Pressel wasn't even missing. She was in the stands spectating and occasionally chatting with some U.S. team members.

The Solheim Cup seems to be on pretty solid ground. Except for the fact that no major network was interested in televising it. That left it to The Golf Channel, which excels at reporting and analyzing tournaments but still seems amateurish at times (at least compared to CBS, NBC and ABC) when it actually gets to broadcast an event.

Like, even though only one match was still ongoing, the lame-ducker between Jones and Pettersen, The Golf Channel had a terrible time keeping up and showing the shots live. And even though we should be used to ex-player-turned-broadcasters who ask fawning questions awkwardly, Kaye Cockerill comes off as sharp as Tim Russert when compared with Jerry Foltz, who seems unable to cough up any kind of relevant question in a face-to-face interview.

Let's get back to the TV part. The Solheim Cup deserves to be seen by a bigger audience but when played in September, it's overshadowed by college football, which blankets Saturday's schedule, and the National Football League, which owns Sundays.