It’s been quite the past 12 months for everybody. But as far as who has had the biggest emotional swing between last year and this week at the U.S. Women’s Open, Sophia Popov has to be near the top of the list.

From nearly quitting the game to winning a major championship, Popov, who captured the AIG Women’s Open in August in dramatic and undeniably amazing fashion, has an opportunity to make some history this week in Houston.

Only one golfer ever, Patty Sheehan, has won both the U.S. Women’s Open and Women’s British Open in the same year. That was in 1992, when the Women’s British was not yet considered a major (coincidentally the same year Popov was born).

Five golfers have won both the Women’s British and U.S. Women’s Opens in their career since 2001, when the British earned major status. For Popov, to even be able to have that kind of conversation is magical.

“If I could win this it would mean just as much as the first major, if not more,” she said. “It would be incredible to back it up.”

Popov is playing her second career U.S. Women’s Open, having made her debut in 2016, when she finished 72nd at CordeValle. Now, however, she is a major champion. The Women’s British Open was also her first career LPGA Tour title. Popov was 304th in the world when she won the British Open, and her $675,000 paycheck was more than six times her career earnings to that point.

She still has occasional “pinch-me” moments these days – like when people she hasn’t seen in a while congratulate her for her incredibly popular triumph this summer.

“On the tee I get announced as a major champion and it’s something I look forward to and am excited about,” said Popov, who was born in Massachusetts and grew up in Germany before playing college golf at the University of Southern California.

She has added three top-25 finishes to her 2020 tally since her victory at Royal Troon. She hasn’t missed a cut yet this season, and she attributes her steady success to the confidence she gained coming out of her winning week. She said that now when she misses a green, she actually embraces the challenge of knocking a chip in the hole or getting up and down from a tricky lie.

“I knew my game was in a good spot, so no matter how I was hitting it or no matter how I felt on the golf course, I knew […] the game is there and the pressure is a little bit off,” said Popov, who admitted she previously would get overwhelmed thinking about making cuts and earning enough money to keep going.

Her emotional vulnerability has been well documented since her breakthrough victory. At one point, having lost playing privileges, she caddied for friend Anne van Dam in an LPGA Tour event, and the week before her stunning victory, she was competing on the Symetra Tour.

Popov said after her win that she considered giving up golf during a particularly difficult time in 2019. She noted that she has never held anything back from her closest friends, but she felt that it might be helpful to women to hear that life is not always a collection of perfect.

She was brought up, she said, to not show the weaknesses. But she was keen to be realistic about the struggles and tell the stories for what they really are. That’s why when she reached the top of the golf world in August, she referenced the times she felt she was at the very bottom.

“It’s way better for girls out there to know what we’re going through in order to reach our goals,” said Popov. “We always have this ‘Cinderella’ story. In our case, every player who wins is this perfect person. They come out. They win. And it’s no big deal. You don’t see what’s happening behind the scenes.

“It was important to let a lot of the other girls know what I’ve been through so they don’t give up, and still have hope even if they go through some struggles in their life.”

Popov admitted that women feel pressure unlike what the male professional golfers do. You hear stories, she said, of players on the Korn Ferry Tour who grind it out for more than a decade before making it onto the PGA Tour and finding success.

“If they have the support they can allow themselves to do that because they don’t have the other things to deal with. It’s a little tougher on the women’s side,” said Popov. “Women’s life cycles are different. We have this timeline where if we want to have a family, these are things we have to think about as the child-bearers. For me, that was a real limit on my end.”

Still, Popov said her freed mindset on the course – with a victory in the rearview mirror, and a major one at that – has allowed her to play some of the best golf of her life.

She said while it’s nice to have won a major and not to have pressure on that front, she’s still treating this week’s event in Houston with the kind of respect it deserves.

“Having won a major is amazing, but every major is so special in itself,” said Popov. “I want to win all of them, ideally.”

Adam Stanley is a multimedia golf journalist based in Ottawa, Ontario.