TEPaul -
Let your cae breathe!!! Is that what you call it.
As for the stream, I am not sure how much Ward was involved, I could be wrong. The main individuals from Land Studies were Mark Gutshall, Jim Baney and Andrew Donaldson.
Here is a brief summary of thier work. In the colonial days a mill dam was placed just below the Springs property for the purpose of timbering the area. The mill happens to be Naugle's Mill (my German brethren). Anyway, as the area is timbered and soil is exposed the run-off, silt, deposits into the pond that is created with the creation of the dam. The silt lifts Shobers Run out of its natural gravel stream bed, perching the stream anywhere from 1-8' above the orginal bed. Once the mill dam is non-functional they break the dam, the pond waters begin to flow back into stream form and now you have a floodplain that does not match the waterway and a stream that is above its natural bed. As years went by the Springs come in, the golf course is built and we find a stream that is highly eroded, floods often, and is now in a severe state of decline. Our first thought is to put a band-aid on the stream (i.e. lay the slopes back, use gabions - all the things many, and I mean many clubs have done wrong over the years). Well, I grew up in Lititz and have known of Land Studies since my time as a Landscape Architect in Lititz. Anyway, I told Ron of Mark Gutshall and he remembered Mark from other conversations. We had the "creek geek" out to Bedford to meet the owner and others. He dug a couple of test pits adjacent to the stream some eight feet deep. Anyway, he jumps down into the pits and pulls up pieces of trees, gravel and other debris that have been encapsulated for 200 + years, pretty cool. That help sell the project. Next, we had to get the budget increased by close to 3/4 of a mil. Done! Once the owner knew flooding and CLOSURE of the course could be an issue, it was an easy sell. The stream bed wsa modified, over 1 mile in length. Shobers Run and its tributaries impact 12 holes at Bedford, so it definately needed to be addressed. The final outcome is a beautiful flowing stream with pools, riffle areas, small falls, wetlands.... Just a tremendous addition.
I will get some pictures posted in coming days.
Land Studies has a unique approach to this process on golf courses, they let the golf course dictate design. Mark is doing all that he can to understand what must happen on an existing course and retrofit their design's into the course. He has worked or is working on seven different cleint's of ours. I simply would not look to anyone else.