Welcome Blake
The key words are Natural and Nature, the land is your friend so please be gentle with her. If the selection process is correct then the land does not need to be ravaged or stripped bare, just carefully nurtured with preventive keyhole surgery rather than a hysterectomy for drainage/irrigation. The same applies to Greens and bunkers, sustainability not conservation as the latter places constraints upon design.
Think more outside the box; please get away from highly thirsty, over cut and manicured courses, seek the natural and do please work with Nature as she will always get her way with or without your help.
As you can see I know zero about GCA but have a little knowledge on the game of Golf, not of course to be confused with cart ball or any other new variation that people are so desperate to link to that great Royal & Ancient Game of Golf.
Most of the members of GCA.com have their hearts in the right place, even those who are well past their sell by date, but allowances must be made for them. If Tom D starts talking about his year in St Andrews in the early 1890 ops sorry it’s the 1980’s, then please do not fall asleep as we hold him in high (as we do the other designers on this site) regard. As for his designs, well that’s another question.
Welcome and I am the one many love to hate, but I am just an old open and honest golfer in the traditional sense.
Melvyn