CALLING IT LIKE IT IS
Su-Ann Heng has done it all in golf. From flying the Singapore flag, to turning pro, and now finding her feet as a LIV Golf presenter, she has embraced each stage with style and poise. Fellow broadcast journalist Justine Moss uncovers a new side to her that is more important than all else.
I last interviewed former professional player Su-Ann Heng five years ago for a profile piece. Back then, we swapped many golf stories over cups of coffee and I learnt more about her early days of playing golf and her career as a TV and radio presenter and event host.
Fast forward to today, and while she still has all of those roles, she has added commentator, analyst, podcast host and mother to her resume.
The 36-year-old joined LIV Golf from its inception in June 2022 as part of their broadcast team and she travels to all the tournaments providing on-course commentary and analysis. The opportunity to join LIV Golf came about when a former colleague James Watson was hired as Senior Vice President for worldwide production there and threw her name in the broadcast team hat.
“We, as a broadcast family, a production family, have become a family”, Heng shares, “Some of us have helped each other through some really dark, difficult times. We all have issues. And we’re able to lean on each other on the road and do that.”
Speaking about family, the one constant and most important person in her life right now is her four-year-old son Casey. She spends as much time as she can with him in between work and travel, splitting parenting duties with former husband, Mediacorp radio DJ Mike Kasem. In addition, Heng’s father Patrick, together with her mother Shirley, have been pillars of strength.
Heng represented Singapore in golf at the 2005 SEA Games and turned professional in 2011. She first picked up a golf club at the age of nine, playing with her family on weekends. After attending Saint Hilda’s Primary and Secondary, she completed her high school studies in Perth, Australia, returned to Singapore, and then secured a two-year scholarship at Daytona State College in Florida.
She felt burnt out during her time in the US and decided to take a break and return to Singapore to be with family.
“It was a dream for me to go to college in the US, live the American dream and turn pro. So when I got there I took it so seriously, I maybe went to one party, I was calorie counting, I was working out twice a day, never took a day off and practised a ton,” Heng recalls. “My eating wouldn’t go above 2200 calories (a day), and on Sundays I would take a day off from golf but I would still workout and jog.
“I think it just hit me in the middle of a season and I was like ‘wow, is this really going to be my life?’ I found myself missing out on life a little bit. So after freshman year I played the national junior championships, came in sixth and quit.”
After completing her management diploma at Singapore Institute of Management to get the necessary credits to obtain her degree, she secured a double major in marketing and management at Murdoch University’s offshore campus.
“I’ve been very lucky. My parents never pushed anything on me. They never made me do anything other than (get) passing grades and going to university to get a degree. Other than that, my parents have been very supportive in many ways. So that’s what I want to give Casey. He can do whatever he wants to.”
And is golf something that she hopes that Casey will take up in the future?
“He really enjoys being out there with me when I work and loves sitting in the golf cart. I’ve taken him to the range a few times and I’m just trying to follow his cue rather than forcing him to do it. I just want to associate the sport with fun, you know? And I think I was able to have that.”
While Heng has caught a couple of curve balls over the years – battling burn-out, dealing with depression, and having to deal with unkind comments online and various detractors – her face and eyes sparkle when she describes the fun that she is having in her life currently.
And that includes humorous on-air and off-air moments with her fellow commentators.
“David Feherty is always going to come up with some of the best liners,” she provides. “In Australia, there was a group of grandmothers on a balcony, coming down the fourth or the fifth hole on the right side. And he was like, oh, ‘that’s a granny shack’. And then he goes, ‘some of those grannies need a shave!’. I could barely keep it in.”
And while Adelaide may be her favourite LIV Golf pitstop on the Tour because of the fans, Australian sporting culture and energy, it’s the Singapore event at Sentosa Golf Club which she is most proud of. The Singapore edition was added into the LIV Golf schedule last year and was played on Sentosa’s Serapong course.
“I love Singapore and I’m a very proud Singaporean”, Heng confessed. “There are so many beautiful things about our country. And so every time it gets here, I am so excited to show people Singapore and put it on global television. People get to really see the amazing parts of the country and, hopefully, some of our culture and traditions.”
The LIV Golf League currently has 14 events in countries such as the US, Mexico, Australia, Singapore, Hong Kong, Spain, Saudi Arabia and the UK. Its unique format has both a team competition (there are 13 teams) as well as an individual competition (across 54 players). There are no cuts during the three- day, 54-hole event with shotgun starts.
The League has attracted many individuals, families and children to go out and watch the events and Heng explains that this is how you grow the game of golf.
“To include females, to include families, to include kids. And I would say the average age of spectators I’ve witnessed, just throughout my two and a half seasons, is way younger than anything I’ve ever seen. And it keeps getting better and better.”
It is obvious that her love of the game in all its different forms motivates her on a daily basis when it comes to work. “It has come full circle for me. I had dreams of being one of the top players in the world and flying my country flag and making Singapore proud. Of course when I didn’t get to do all that I hit a ceiling”, she admits.
“But to now be with arguably one of the strongest fields in golf, represent Singapore on the broadcast scene, be on national TV in the US and yet still be around a sport that I love is what gets me up in the morning.”
The other reason, of course, is being a parent, and an inspiration to her son. “I think probably the hardest part about what I do is the separation part and being away from Casey for many weeks a year, Heng laments. “At the same time, I tell myself that when he’s at an age where he starts to understand life – its passions and dreams – my hope is for him to be inspired to chase his own dreams and make the sacrifices that need to be made.”
The 1.8-handicapper may not play much golf these days. Aside from spending as much time as she can with her son, she also finds ways to keep fit by working out at the gym and running about four kilometres twice a week. And to centre herself, she has discovered her creative side in building lego models, and painting.
Along the way she has found inspiration in embracing a number of career mentors. They include television sports anchor Colette Wong as well as LIV Golf colleagues James Watson, Jerry Foltz, Dom Boulet, Arlo White and David Feherty.
“When I first got this job, I was very new, and I still am very new, and I think I’ve learned that you don’t have to be perfect,” she reveals. “For so much of my life, I strove for perfection. I mean, golf isn’t a game of perfect, but yet we strive for it. And I just learned, basically, that you just have to be yourself. And wherever that takes you, it takes you.
She adds, “Life just throws you curveballs, right? But it doesn’t have to be perfect. You’re going to make mistakes, you’re going to fall, you’re going to fail, you’re going to say things on air that make you sound like an idiot. You’re going to stumble on a couple of words.
“I think for the longest time I had so much pressure because I was around such depth of talent. There was a little bit of an imposter syndrome in some ways, like, am I good enough?
“With every job there’s a sense of insecurity and I think I’ve embraced that. I think I’ve learned to be aware, and be open to learning as much as I can.”
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