Longtime golf starters for men’s and women’s golf clubs will retire; GRF seeks replacements

by Dave LaCascia

LW Contributor

Carl Richard Wiggins, a longtime LW resident and golf course starter, has hung up his spikes and retired.

Carl was born and raised in Kansas City, Kansas. He joined the Navy and served for four years on a destroyer after WWII, part of the time off the coast of Korea during that war. After leaving the service in 1951, he toured California with a shipmate and subsequently met and married his wife, Joy Clark. He worked for over 35 years locally as a telephone wireman for General Telephone, which became GTE in the mid-80s.

Carl moved into LW with his wife upon his retirement from GTE in 1987. His wife was active in LW for years and ran a Walk-A-Thon here for five years.

He was married to her for over 70 years. He has had three sons—two of whom are deceased— and six grandchildren. His remaining son lives in South Carolina.

In 2004, he was hired by GRF as a pool attendant. Four years later he was asked to be golf starter, and he agreed. This is a position he held until his retirement in February. He has been a member of the LW Men’s Golf Club and played in tournaments for over 30 years. He served as vice president and president of the club for two years each. Although he no longer plays golf, he is still passionate about the game.

Every Tuesday, for even he doesn’t remember how long, he has announced the golfers of the LW Women’s Golf Club onto the tee for their tournaments. On occasion, he would also perform the same service for the Men’s and the Guys and Gals tournaments.

He always managed to get the difficult to pronounce names correct. Over the years he got to know most golfers by name and was always a friendly and welcome face in the starters shack. In his retirement, he plans to enjoy life, listen to country and western music, and watch the “young’uns” play golf on TV. We’ll miss you Carl.

Anne Walshe is a 13-year LW resident, a nine-year GRF employee and a seven-year fixture in the Golf Starters shack. She has decided to retire and move away from LW to remain close to her only sibling, a sister who recently moved to an assisted living facility in Washington.

Anne was born in Atlantic City, New Jersey, and lived in New York City for 35 years. During that time she received an MBA in health care administration. Afterwards, she worked in major NYC medical centers and clinics.

She met her partner Fran Silverstein in 1990 and moved to Arizona in 2002. Together they lived in Arizona until Fran passed peacefully at their home in 2006. Anne moved into Leisure World in 2010 to be closer to her sister. Her first week in LW, she played golf and met someone who encouraged her to join the Women’s Golf Club.

She qualified easily and has been playing with the club every week since then. Soon after, she was assisting in totaling and checking the weekly tournament scoring for accuracy. With this role she became a Women’s Club board member. She has continued in that role until January.

She began working as a golf starter in 2014, was then asked to be the attendant in the gym in 2015, and then reverted back to the starter’s role in 2017. She’s been in that role ever since, welcoming and signing in golfers to the Turtle Lake Golf Course.

In addition to her weekly Women’s Club tournaments, Anne has played regularly in the monthly Guys and Gals tournaments, where her first partner was Carl Wiggins. Anne and Carl played together for many years and once made a headline in the LW News: “Wiggins and Walshe win first place with a net 41.”

Anne wanted to express to all LW golfers that as a golf starter, she and the others are all about assisting golfers. The starters endured several golf course renovations and worked outside under a tent to keep the golf course open while the golf shack and the tee boxes were being renovated.

After the pandemic ended, the starters helped golfers make tee times online to play the game we all love. Once it was determined that online tee times were no longer necessary she gladly returned to the current first-come, first-served system.

Thanks for a job well done, Anne. Best wishes and safe travels. We appreciate your efforts over the years.

Anne Walshe