Outside of Arizona few people had ever heard of Sophia Popov. The USC graduate, and Scottsdale resident, had floundered in her first try on the LPGA tour, being relegated to the Symetra and even mini-tour events to keep her hopes alive. The Cactus Tour is an Arizona based mini-tour, which is meant as a developmental option for women who are recently out of college, or are struggling to re-find their games.
While other golfers were using the Covid 19 break to practice and rest, Popov wanted to do more. She wanted to compete. And compete she did. And one of the very few options was the Cactus Tour. She won her first Cactus Tour event in mid-April and went on to win two more.
She used her new-found confidence to enter a Symetra Tour event and finished second, enabling her to qualify for an LPGA event. She finished in the top 10 in the Marathon Classic, and that placing earned her a spot at the AIG Championship, also known as the ladies British Open.
She went into the tournament with a ranking over 300th in the world. No woman golfer outside the 200’s had ever won a major. But Popov got an early lead, and was able to maintain it down the stretch for an improbable, yet convincing win.
Mike Brown, the Cactus Tour commissioner, was a guest on The Golf Arizona Show and he said he saw Popov getting better each week and could sense her getting more and more confident. He said he wasn’t surprised by her meteoric rise.
Popov’s win netted her $675,000 for her efforts…a little more than the $4,000 she received from winning a Cactus Tour event just a month earlier. The win means Popov is exempt for 2 years on regular tour events and 5 years in majors. And the Cactus Tour? Brown believes that, due to the exposure the Cactus Tour received over the past few months, that a lot more women golfers on the rise, will want to play in his events.
