Tom:
My sense, broadly, is that the early years of golf in Scotland (pre-guttie) were nurtured by a very wealthy set of individuals, based at elitist clubs like the Honourable Co., Prestwick, Royal Burgess, Royal Abderdeen, and the R & A. Much of (really, all of...) Scotland's wealth at the time was based around ports and communities with access to water -- Ediburgh, Glasgow, the Ayrshire coast, Aberdeen, and Fife. Scotland, historically a much poorer country than England, relied on these port cities for much of its economic development pre-1850, and golf as a leisure pursuit was centered in its early stages among golf clubs comprised of wealthy individuals. (GCA poster Tony Muldoon has suggested a variation of golf called the Short game was played by "commoners" during this early-stage development of golf, but I'm not convinced it resembles the game as we know it today.)
Wealth in England was more broadly distributed throughout the country, and thus so were inland golf courses. True, some of the earliest and best-known English golf clubs were set on links ground -- Westward Ho!. Royal Liverpool, Royal St. George's -- but some very good inland courses also developed in England pre-1900: Notts and Ganton, to name two. Shortly after the turn of the century, of course, came the development of premier inland courses like Sunningdale, Walton Health and Woodhall Spa.
You'd be hard-pressed to find any comparable inland courses in Scotland developed pre-1905.