Competitive, Compassionate, Talented

Su-Ann on chasing her dreams, burn out and how she has battled and dealt with depression

- Justine Moss

For many who have dreamt of taking the professional tour route, it’s not an easy journey. No matter how talented and hard working you are, more often than not there are a string of obstacles in the way – whether it be financial, discipline, burn out - which can hinder the process.

For TV and Radio Host and Emcee and former professional player Su-Ann Heng Kasem, it was the latter that she experienced during her scholarship at Daytona State College in Florida.

“I got so burnt out by that point. I was playing such great golf – I was technically swinging it the worst but playing my best golf. I feel like I focused so much on the playing side of things and that made me a less technical golfer and more of a playing golfer. School wise and golf wise it was fantastic – I was on top of the world. But I just was burnt out internally –I’d been away from home for five years but it wasn’t so much that, I think it was more you reach that teenage time where you’re like is this really my life. Is this it?”

We are sitting in her lovely, sunny apartment in the eastern part of Singapore, swapping golf stories over cups of coffee with the occasional interruption by her two gorgeous cats Seve and Divot. The newly married (she wed MediaCorp radio personality Mike Kasem in June 2019) 31-year-old is funny, vivacious, kind and while I’ve known her a long time I was unaware that she had battled depression for the past few years, but it was something that she wanted to share with golf/WOMEN readers.

But first a rewind in time to when Su-Ann first picked up a golf club at the age of nine, playing with her family on weekends. Having always been competitive in sports, she realized after a while that she was beating some golfers who had been playing golf a lot longer than me.