Tom
I'm still struggling to understand what you and others mean by "texture." If you define it as in your last post, Brora has a lot of texture and so does Dornoch and Shinnecok Hills (I assume--only saw it once). Are you agreeing with Adam, who seems to relate "texture" to the changing of the seasons? If so, every golf course has "texture" and the distinctions are trivial.
If I remember correctly, "texture" is a term for painting that relates to how the often microscopic layering of paint on canvas adds something of a third dimesion to what is effectively a two-dimensional art form. I think that this has been extended to painting without any particular physical texture but with compositional "texture." I don't really understand that concept either, unless it is a surrogate for "composition" or other more traditional terms.
Finally, if there is such a thing as "texture," in golf courses or otherwise, it must apply to all goilf courses, unless you can better define what it means. The more I think about it, the "texture" your talk about regarding the Old Course is as prevalent or even more prevalent in all the courses I know of in Fife, including non-entities such as Aberdour, Anstruther and Auchterderran.
I see the Old Course as Peter aqccurately sees Dornoch through the pictures on Frank Pont's website--as a piece of old crumpled and unwashed linen.
But, what linens and what crumples, and thank the gods that they remain largely unwashed.......
Rich