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If the Solheim Cup in Ireland didn’t attract attention from golf fans everywhere during Sunday’s singles matches, well, what can one say? The conclusion provided one nerve-wracking moment after another, and demonstrated that the Solheim Cup warrants as much attention as does the Ryder Cup. The European team won 15-13 over the U.S. side, and the result was all down to the last matches. For a wake-up call as to the passion that the women have for their game, well, they made the argument themselves.

Readers will know that I suggested in my Saturday column that golf fans don’t care as much about women’s golf as they do about men’s golf. I hope this will change over the next couple of years, and bring to a crescendo the interest in the 2013 Solheim Cup that will be held at the Colorado Golf Club. It’s possible that Annika Sorenstam, the Swedish superstar who won 10 majors and who is retired from competitive golf, will captain the European side as it tries to defend its title. That would be terrific. Sorenstam was an assistant captain at this year’s Solheim Cup.

It’s also possible that Juli Inkster, who at 51 was the oldest player to play a Solheim Cup, and who figured prominently in the singles, will captain the U.S. team in two years’ time. Inkster, also an assistant captain in the Solheim, was one-down when she and 47-year-old Laura Davies came to the 18th hole of their singles match. They each hit their second shots into bunkers. Inkster didn’t flinch, and almost holed her 30-yard bunker shot—and there’s no more difficult shot in golf than the long bunker shot. Davies hit her bunker shot to 10-feet but missed her putt, and so the U.S. got a half-point there.

It was all great, riveting stuff, and what a shame it was that Cristie Kerr of the American side had to forfeit her match against Europe’s Karen Stupples. Kerr had hurt her wrist earlier in the week but played all the matches and wanted desperately to go out on Sunday. She was in obvious pain on the practice range and then in tears when she realized she couldn’t play. By captains’ agreement before the matches started Friday, the point went to Europe.

That was the agreement, and so be it. It would have been preferable, obviously, had Kerr been able to play against Stupples. They were scheduled to go out in the 12th and last match, because U.S. captain Rosie Jones and European captain Alison Nicholas wanted them there if the result came down to the final match. Stupples said she was “gutted” that Kerr couldn’t play, and that says a lot about her. She didn’t want a free point for Europe. She wanted to play for it. She’s an athlete and a competitor. The faces of every player, the captains, and their assistants, made the same declaration: We want the Cup and we want to win it on the course.

Europe did that, busting forward from a situation that looked grim with only a few singles remaining. Norway’s Suzann Pettersen, the number-two ranked player in the world, was one-down to Michelle Wie with three holes to go, and in the third last match. She birdied the last three holes to win on the last green. Next up was Caroline Hedwall of the Netherlands, two down with two to play against American rookie and captain’s pick Ryan O’Toole. O’Toole bogied the last two holes, so Europe got a half in the match. O’Toole was more than top-drawer in her first Solheim, though. She won three points for her team. Hedwall, a rookie, hit her approach on the final green to five feet. O’Toole did bogey the hole, but Hedwall showed that she was up for the shot she needed to play.

A player from Norway and a player from the Netherlands had won points in the third to last and the second to last match. The result came down to the last match. Europe had to win to claim the Cup. The U.S. would retain the Cup with a tie because it had won the 2009 Solheim. Here came Spain’s Azahara Munoz, birdieing the 17th to take a one-up lead over Angela Stanford. She won by that margin, and so Europe, having lost the last three Solheim Cups, had taken the one in Ireland for their Scottish captain Nicholas.

At the ceremony, the European side stood with honour and pride and class beside a photo of the late, great, passionate Seve Ballesteros, the one where he’s fist-pumping the air after holing an 18-foot birdie putt to win the 1984 Open Championship on the final green. Who better to inspire the European team?

“It was fantastic to watch,” Nicholas said after the dramatic conclusion. “Sweet,” Pettersen tweeted. That it was.

Meanwhile, Lexi Thompson, only 16 and the most recent winner on the LPGA Tour, will soon be granted her LPGA membership, and is as sure a bet as the fickle game of golf will allow to make the 2013 U.S. team. There’s much to look forward to in women’s golf, and a phenomenal event that just ended in Ireland to remember.

Women’s golf? It’s time to care, and time to follow. The Solheim Cup that Europe won Sunday was brilliant stuff. Brilliant. Vital. Energizing. Simple as that.