Beatrice Chia-Richmond On Life As A Full-Time Golf Mum In US: “I’m The Most Sleep-Deprived Person”

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Actor and theatre director Beatrice Chia-Richmond never imagined that motherhood would take her tramping across golf courses in America, waking up before dawn and clocking more hours on the road than on stage.

But when her son Sol, now 18, decided in 2022 that he wanted to pursue golf seriously, the family packed up and moved to the United States together.

Sol, who aspires to be a PGA Tour golfer, attends Windermere Preparatory High School in Florida and trains six days a week at MMG Performance, a high-performance golf academy.

For Beatrice, 51, the move triggered a complete reset.

Even as she continues running her events production company Presplay and most recently served as creative director on three SG60 initiatives, she has spent the past three-and-a-half years living a bi-continental life.

By day, she is a full-time golf mum in Florida, by night, she switches straight into work mode as Singapore wakes up, a schedule so brutal that sleep became her biggest sacrifice.

“I’m the most sleep-deprived person,” Beatrice tells 8days.sg, when we catch up with her during a recent trip back to Singapore for the launch of The Albatross File: Singapore’s Independence Declassified exhibition, an SG60 initiative she creatively helmed.

With Florida and Singapore exactly 12 hours apart, she found herself living almost 24-hour days in the first year.

“In the day in Florida, I'm present for my family. But when it comes 9pm, when the family starts to wind down to go to bed, I'm winding up because Singapore is waking up and it's time to get to work,” says Beatrice.

It didn’t take long for reality to hit. “It was unsustainable and very difficult on many levels,” she admits.

Eventually, she worked out a system with her team: Zoom meetings from 9am to noon Singapore time — which meant staying up till 1am — followed by another round of work at 5 or 6am. “So I would get about four or five hours of sleep in between.”

Golf parenting is not for the faint-hearted

And that’s just the work side of things.

Being a golf mum, Beatrice says, is practically another full-time job.

Tournament days often begin at 4am for early tee times, followed by long drives, often across unfamiliar parts of the US.

“America is a very big country and tournaments don’t happen at your doorstep,” she says.

There were moments when she was driving in the dark, fighting sleep and hoping she could stay awake long enough to get her son safely to the course, sometimes straight after an overnight work call that ended at 4am.

“Sometimes you have meetings and you cannot tell the minister, ‘I cannot meet you at 3am.’ You just have to show up,” she says.

Once there, the waiting game begins. Junior tournaments can stretch anywhere from five to nine hours, especially with rain delays. And because juniors aren’t allowed to use buggies, everyone walks — including parents.

The physical exhaustion is real, but the emotional test can be even tougher.

“One of the most difficult things is that you cannot play the game for him,” Beatrice admits. “All you can do is really encourage and support.”

On bad days, that means watching her own child struggle on the course while running on little to no sleep herself.

There have even been moments when she’s “fallen asleep next to squirrels and raccoons,” only to wake up and find her sandwich gone.

Still, whenever she can, she chooses to walk the course and watch Sol play, which she calls her "favouritest thing".

“I absolutely love watching him play,” she says, especially when things don’t go his way. “How he recovers from that… that always makes me so proud.”

While she believes he has a long way to go and is “extremely far from his dream,” she’s in no hurry to rush milestones.

Off the course, life in the US has been just as demanding.

Without the conveniences she once took for granted in Singapore, Beatrice has become her own handyman, electrician and housekeeper — cooking almost every meal (Prima Taste laksa is a family favourite) and even doing decking work herself.

“I learned to use a power drill and fix a fridge,” she laughs, listing off skills she never imagined needing.

In 2023, husband, sports commentator and former DJ Mark Richmond, 54, joined the family in the US, turning the move into what Beatrice calls “a family project”.

Mark took a two-year sabbatical from Sport Singapore and enrolled at the University of Central Florida, where he is currently studying psychology.

He continues to do sports commentary remotely, sometimes broadcasting straight from their bedroom.

“He can have a taste of my life,” Beatrice quips. “This is a family project.”

With both husband and son studying, home quickly resembled a hostel.

“I have two students,” she laughs. “Books everywhere, laptops everywhere, cups of coffee everywhere.”

Beatrice will get a reprieve from golf mum duties when the family returns to Singapore mid-2026 when Sol begins his National Service.

And if he gets into a US college after that? They may just find themselves doing it all over again.