Odd Woman Out: In March, the LPGA said they mistakenly gave Sophia Popov 3 starts to finish her maternity leave. And took away the 12 CME points she earned.
Not a lot but enough to keep her out of Q School finals. After last week, 101-150 get in that last stage. Popov is 151st. She has no more starts.
Popov says she didn’t think she had any maternity starts left but was told by the LPGA that she did. So she played Founders in Florida, Thailand, and Singapore instead of getting her Epson Tour season started.
She won the Epson event on Mother’s Day and was 35th on the season points race going into last week’s Tour Championship. Those 16-35 are also exempt into Q School finals. Faced with the option of her last LPGA start in Hawaii or the Epson finale, she chose the LPGA and finished T67. When the Epson dust settled, she was bumped from 35th to 38th.
Popov has lived on the edge of the LPGA exempt list since joining the tour in 2015. She had conditional status her first couple of years as she battled Lyme Disease. Then totally lost her membership in 2019 when she missed the last card at Q School by 1.
But in 2020, she famously won the
@AIGWomensOpen as a longshot at No. 304 in the world. Yet because she was a non-member, she only got a 2 year LPGA exemption (which largely because of her has been changed to 5 years as members get). Had that been in place when she won, Popov would still be fully exempt.
So now unless the LPGA gives her those 12 points back and allows her into the finals, she will either have to go to Stage II this month or accept her fate and play the Epson in 2026 with the occasional LPGA start using her bottom of the barrel status as a veteran member.