There’s nothing quite like witnessing a person’s life change for the better.  It’s uplifting, emotional and leaves you with the feeling that perhaps the world isn’t such a bad place after all when wonderful things can happen to wonderful people.  It certainly beats the unrelenting diet of dreadful global news that would make a saint despair.

Last Sunday a dream came true for Sophia Popov as she held off everyone and everything (including her own doubts and questions) in the final round of the AIG Women’s Open at Royal Troon.  She is the first women’s major winner of this strange 2020 season; the first German woman to become a major champion; the third German player (after Bernhard Langer and Martin Kaymer) to hoist a major trophy.

Nothing has come easily to the 27-year old American-born German.  Turning pro in 2014 she gained her LPGA card for the following year but was soon struggling with a myriad of health issues, lacking energy and stamina and losing 25 pounds in the process.  It took almost three years and a great deal of her own research to arrive, finally, at the diagnosis of Lyme’s disease.  Strict attention to her diet and fitness has helped her regain her strength and control of her life but it seemed as if playing on one of the major tours might well elude her.  She played on a number of mini tours but suffered a huge disappointment as recently as last year when she missed out on her LPGA tour card by one stroke at the Q-series.

She almost gave up but family and friends persuaded her to keep going and with commendable resilience she turned her attentions to the Symetra Tour for 2020, judging this main feeder tour to the LPGA as her best opportunity to get back to where she felt she belonged.

And then Covid happened.  And the Symetra Tour, like almost all sporting organisations, closed down.  And we were in to lockdown.

I think at this stage, if it had been me, I might have thought the universe was trying to tell me something.  But Sophia Popov, thankfully, isn’t me, and I, unfortunately, am not her, which is why I’m sitting here blogging and she, I hope, is with all her loved ones in Heidelberg (or her American home in Arizona) having a riotous, week-long party to rival that of Shane Lowry.

During the lockdown period there was one small tour that kept its doors open and kept giving players the opportunity to compete – the Arizona-based Cactus Tour.  Several of the LPGA players availed themselves of the chance to try and retain a little bit of sharpness in their games and it was against this backdrop that Sophia recorded her first professional victory of any sort – and she didn’t stop at one win either!  In a little under four months she had three wins and a host of other high finishes.

Popov exited lockdown and turned up at the first tournament on the new, revised LPGA schedule in Toledo, Ohio, not as a player but as a caddy for her great friend and European Solheim Cup star, Anne Van Dam.  Assessing the course and risks with a caddy’s eye, as opposed to that of a player, really helped her with her course strategy, she said.  She realised that often her aggressive attitude was a little gung-ho and that playing the percentages may serve her better.  What a lesson to learn a month before a Women’s Open!

At this point fate intervened to provide a rare helping hand.  So many overseas players did not travel to the States for the resumption of the tour that a spot opened up for Sophia in the Marathon LPGA Classic, so this time she was inside the bubble as a player, not a caddy.  A top-ten finish, her first ever in an LPGA event, earned her a cheque for a little over $27,000, her biggest-ever payday but more importantly she secured exemption into the field at Royal Troon two weeks later.  Then she made what seemed to some a strange decision:  she elected to stay in the States to play in a Symetra Tour event instead of going over to Scotland in plenty of time to prepare for the first major of the year.  She admitted she was utterly focused on the Symetra Tour and achieving a top-five ranking at the year’s end to regain her LPGA tour card. The AIG Women’s Open was a “bonus event” for her.

As it happened, a second-place finish, which meant another week at the sharp end of a tournament and a late arrival at Troon, with time for only one practice round added up to her own personal recipe for success.

It just goes to show that winning and being in the mix at any level is a great habit to acquire.  It armoured Sophia to deal with holding a 54-hole lead in a major for the first time in her life;  it gave her the confidence to play down the stretch like a seasoned veteran; and it gave her the courage to seize this stupendous opportunity with both hands.

Sophia’s bank manager will be very happy.  Her winner’s cheque of $675,000 is six times more than she has banked in the whole of her career but the “add-ons” are exceptional, not least membership of the LPGA Tour and unlimited choice for the next few years to play wherever she wants.  The winnings are great but the benefits are priceless.

At this point it’s worth a nod to the inimitable Dame Laura Davies who was so entertaining with her commentary throughout the week.  Laura was not a member of the LPGA tour when she won the US Women’s Open in 1987 and there was no provision for major winners to be offered automatic membership of the tour.  This caused the LPGA a bit of a headache as they certainly did not want the winner of their national Open potentially having to attend the end of season qualifying school.  I seem to remember that Laura had said she would not be going to the Q-school so it was over to the tour to make the next move.  They took their time but the rule was born that stated any major champion not already an LPGA member would be offered membership accordingly.  So many over the years have benefited from this “Davies rule” and Sophia Popov is a welcome addition to that list.

Finally, you will have noted, no doubt, that Sophia has dual citizenship – of Germany and America.  I was heartened to see a German flag opposite her name in the US tournament lists as I’d love to see her in the next Solheim Cup – wearing yellow and blue, of course.

I’m sitting here writing this with the rain pouring down, feeling very virtuous because I went for a walk quite early this morning and very frustrated because there’s golf – proper professional golf, with some famous players on the starting sheet – at The Belfry, just down the road.  It’s not the rain keeping me away, of course but COVID-19 and the restrictions that prevent any spectators from attending tournaments.  Players, caddies, officials and broadcasters at the ISPS HANDA UK Championship will be in their bubble, the sine qua non of tournaments going ahead.

I switched on the telly when I came back from my walk but there was no sign of anything from The Belfry, so I had to find something else to do and decided I might as well start writing the blog unusually early, i.e. before midnight.  Whether it’ll be finished before midnight is another matter altogether….

At least working at a computer is an inside occupation and there’s something vaguely comforting about the rain bouncing off a roof that seems to be doing its job with no sign of any leaks.  There’s nothing remotely comforting about rain bouncing off an umbrella as your hands and feet, your towels and glove, your clubs and composure get damper and damper, wetter and wetter.

Ross Fisher, one of the last of the early starters, had to play the Brabazon’s treacherous 18th in a downpour, misjudged his drive a bit, found the penalty area, aka water, on the left and wound up with a double bogey six.  He wasn’t unhappy with a round of 68, four under par and mentioned in passing that he’d got his angles a little wrong, not least because it was many years since he’d played the course.  Doesn’t time move on?  Once upon a time the European Tour was always at The Belfry, big events were held there year in, year out, not forgetting four unforgettable Ryder Cups.

The first of those was in 1985 and Europe, who’d come agonisingly close to winning at PGA National in Florida two years previously, lost three of the opening four foursomes.  Oops.  They rallied spectacularly and ended up winning 16 1/2 – 11 1/2.  Remember Paul Way, just 22, who’d beaten the formidable Raymond Floyd in the singles, celebrating on the balcony with great names like Ballesteros, Faldo, Lyle, Woosnam and Langer?  Way lost his golfing way but better, surely, to have had moments of real glory than none at all?

This week Brendan Lawlor, a 22-year old Irishman from Dundalk, a star of the EDGA (European Disabled Golf Association), who only turned professional last September, is moving up a league or three, in a field featuring players of the calibre of Willett, Martin Kaymer and Lee Westwood, to name just a few.  He’s the first professional disability golfer to play on the European Tour and even though he was 1 under par after three holes, he had a tough day on a course playing every inch of its 7,255 yards, finishing with an 84.  The Brabazon can be a bit of a brute, especially when it’s wet but Lawlor was unfazed.

“The back nine was a bit tough,” he conceded, “but I really enjoyed today.  I didn’t shoot the best score but it’s not about the score today.  The coverage over the last few days, people texting and on Instagram, looking at EDGA, that’s the reason why I’m here this week.  It’s really incredible.

“It’s a week to change my life and other people’s lives, so just go out and enjoy it and that’s what I did.  I didn’t have any expectations of scores.  I’m just so grateful to be competing on the same stage as these guys and getting opportunities like this.  What ISPS HANDA represent, they have asked me to be an ambassador this year as well.  It’s a great role for me and I’m enjoying it.”

The International Sports Promotion Society, founded by Dr Haruhisa Handa, who is also the founder and chairman of the Japan Blind Golf Association, is a charitable organisation that promotes sports such as golf, football and rowing, believing that sport “has the power to break down barriers, unite communities and create positive change in people’s lives and society”.  Dr Handa has also been appointed the European Tour’s honorary ambassador of the “Golfers with Disability Programme”.

Lawlor has a condition called Ellis-van Creveld, which he describes as “a type of dwarfism that means I have a shorter stature and shorter limbs but I’ve never let any barriers stop me.  I’ve never thought of myself as any different.”  He was also born with a hole in his heart and doesn’t have any knuckles at the top of his fingers.  “It’s tough to grip the golf club because I can’t bend my fingers in or make a fist, so my two index fingers sort of hang off the club but I’ve adapted because it’s all I’ve known.

“I only got into disability golf two years ago.  My auntie found EDGA on a website but initially my mam was afraid to ask if I would try it because she thought I might be insulted.  I don’t really think of myself as having a disability or being different and everything is so normal in my life but she said would you try disability golf and I thought I’d give it a go.”

And now he’s making his own bit of history.  Go Brendan.