Wernddu Golf Club

Natalie Gulbis and the rest of the Solheim Cup team are celebrating in Monte Carlo. From Nat's blog, she reports:

"The second day here we had the day off to walk around, shop, spend time at the spa (I had the best massage of my life) enjoy croissants, French food and back to the boat! That night we had dinner at the largest wine gallery in the world. It is said to have a million bottles of wine! Wow! This is my last day here. I am off to New York for the rest of the weekend to see my sponsors, have a few meetings and visit ESPN and SI.com. The new season of my show airs tonight in the states. Can't wait to see how it turns out!"

For more from Nat, visit her site.

This past weekend, I had the pleasure of meeting Tony from Hooked on Golf Blog and Chris from Eagle Par Birdie blog in beautiful Monterey, California. For some unknown reason, Mazda wanted to treat us all (along with a few other cool bloggers) to a weekend of golf, delicious gourmet food, spa treatments, and car/motorcycle racing at Laguna Seca. Mazda has not asked us to write anything or do anything in return. Mazda just get gave us the keys to a free Miata hardtop to test drive and then treated us all like we were Tiger Woods. It can't get any better than that. I've written more on my other blog about the amazing weekend with Mazda, and made this short video of the trip. Zoom. Zoom. Zoom. P.S. Yes, clubs can fit in the Miata.

Ho-hum. The Fed Ex Cup is over. Finally. It made Tiger Woods $10 million richer (in escrow), but did it make the PGA any richer? Probably not. The PGA hasn't said much about an increase in ratings. And it's easy to wonder if the PGA might go broke if the $10 million it has to keep shelling out each year turns out to be $30 million or more when fully vested.

So why did the Fed Ex Cup flop big-time? Here are a few reasons:

1. The Fed Ex Cup seemed no different than a regular tour event, even lesser in stature than the World Golf Championship events. It didn't help that Tiger Woods wouldn't ever acknowledge that the Cup meant anything more to him than winning a tournament. Let's face it, the PGA is not NASCAR.

2. The scoring system was a mystery and left only 3 players in contention for the final tournament. Why not start the final 30 all from scratch for the final tourney?

3. The golf season is long enough, the Fed Ex Cup only made it longer -- forcing the marquee players like Phil Mickelson, Tiger Woods, and Ernie Els have to skip a week to be with family (such as at the start of their kids' school). The FedEx Cup could be reduced to 2 weeks, a complete shootout.

4. PGA Commissioner Tim Finchem didn't consult with some of the top players enough for settling on the format. It doesn't help when the marquee players are criticizing the Fed Ex Cup.