Pat:
You really don't have a sense of humor, do you? Check that, please don't answer this, as I don't need to hear how funny you think you are.
Yes, Tillie did venture down to Texas to build courses. I remember reading somewhere how his connection with the folks down there came about, but I can't recall the exact details nor find the source right now. My best guess is that he was brought down to do one or two courses, and afterwards became the go to guy for anyone looking to build a course.
It would be interesting to have Phil Young chime in and tell us the back stories for Brackenridge Park, Brook Hollow, Cedar Crest, Corsicana, etc. Where did the money for these projects come from? Who were the main players? What were their golf influences/roots?
Maxwell's connections with Texas are fairly obvious. For a good portion of his career, he was right up the road.
Ross came through a couple of times in the '20's to build three courses. I have no idea if he made the trip or designed from topos, nor how much time he spent on site, if any.
As noted, this only represents a fraction of the number of courses that were built in Texas in the early days. By 1940, there had been approximately 240 courses built in the State. That is not an insignificant number. Who built and maintained most of those courses is largely unknown. John Bredemus appears to be the only local architecture talent of note, and has his hands on many of the more highly regarded courses built.
Other than these guys, and a handful of courses by Bendelow, there are a number of one- or two-offs by a sampling of other guys.
In short, it wasn't an area where the architects of the day were spending a lot of time. Contrast the development of Texas with that of Florida during the same time frame. There's a reason why so many big names were setting up offices in Florida. There was plenty of work to be had, and it made for a good balance with the courses they were still building in the Northeast and Midwest during the summers. The centered their time and efforts, and the locations of their work crews, in the areas that would provide the greatest return. There may have been guys in Texas who had money and could afford to hire high price talent, but unless they could guarantee steady work, it wouldn't make sense for any of those architects to develop the support system in the state that they did in other areas, areas where they were able to dedicate the time and effort needed to produce courses that have become known to be "great."
You've brought up Winged Foot as an example of a great course that Tillie was able to build on a not so great site. We could argue over whether Winged Foot is better or worse than anything he had to work with in Texas, but I'd suspect that would just result in another black hole of conjecture. What you can't argue is the quality of the teams available in each location. Tillie was able to work with a team that was familiar with golf course construction when he worked in the Northeast. That would not have been the case in Texas. If an architect is only as good as his team (a mantra repeated hereabout with a great deal of frequency), I can easily understand why the architects of the Golden Age produced their best work in the areas where they had access to trusted teams and a developed support system.
As I said before, it was one thing to move your team from Westchester County to New Jersey. Or from Boca Raton to Lake Wales. Or from Connecticut to Newport. It was entirely different proposition to move that team halfway across the country. Would have been cheaper to hire laborers down there, but the tradeoff is you'd lose the benefit of the experience of guys who had done it before.
Green ink to your little heart's delight.
Sven