Brent,
This is the danger of judging the book by its cover - just looking at the yardages tells you very little about how the holes actually play. Jeff hit on a big part of it, that Turnberry has a lot of topographical interest. But whereas in the US you can often get by with the assumption that similar length = bland or monotonous or lacking in interest, you just simply can't do that overseas, particularly in Scotland. A lot of this has to do with the wind - we just aren't influenced by it that much here in the US. The best way I can describe this is to group the holes according to the direction of play:
Holes 1 and 3 play south
Holes 2 and 5 play towards the north
8 tends towards the northwest
9 and 10 move back to the northeast, with 10 providing one of the more difficult driving tests on the course
12 heads southwest
13 makes a left turn back towards the east
and you make a u-turn and head west on 14 back towards the coastline
16 heads in a southeasterly direction and I would wager is the most difficult green on the course, with the added difficultly of a burn fronting the green
and finally 18 is the nearest thing to a dogleg at Turnberry with the teeshot moving southeast and the approach to the green coming from the west
So while the holes may have a similar raw yardage, notice the constant variation in direction. The wind of the day will play a big impact on how the holes actually play.