I think calling it the future of links golf is prescient, or at least not at all far off the mark.
Every 'links course' of note in America already promotes its high end wine list and world class cuisine and accommodations.
The most famous (private) links courses in Scotland are long-standing models for Renaissance's modern-day brand of exclusivity, and as famous "open-to-the-public" links courses have increased visitor green fees 10-fold in the last 30 years -- the day-pass equivalent of seven-figure initiation costs.
This Houston businessman-East Lothian course is a combination that seems to capture/manifest the ethos and spirit of the age almost perfectly.
On second thought, the writer's main contention actually is off the mark: the future is in fact already here.
All of which, it seems to me, is in the natural order of things, so nothing to get fussed or surprised about. 100 years ago it was Mr. Tarrant, at St. George's Hill, in Surrey -- that era's version of great golf with a focus on premier accommodations and bucket-list specialness.
Peter