As Jim Lipe mentions, Ed Connor rebuilt the greens at No. 2 twice, once in the early 1980's. The first time, the greens were not rebuilt precisely ... Ed showed me a dip on the right side of the 18th green which he filled in 3-4 inches to make it less severe, at the urging of the Pinehurst staff. He said there were a handful of other modifications, but he didn't say anything about an overall change. There is no way the greens got built up 18 inches too high at that time; the mistake would be way too obvious, and Ed Connor wouldn't have stood for it. [Actually, he would have been too busy falling off his tractor!]
Pete Dye's story is that the greens were topdressed up to roughly their present shape by 1946 or 1947, when he chatted with Donald Ross. It is entirely possible this was the case. Common bermuda greens were heavily topdressed in those days ... when we rebuilt the greens at Yeamans Hall we had to remove about a foot of topdressing sand from the middle of the greens, which had shrunk to half their size before the addition of topdressing.
The deeper meaning of Pete's story is that he seems to be saying that all this careful preservation and restoration of Ross's work is misguided ... that if Ross were alive today he would be lengthening his holes and changing greens which have evolved over time. That may [or may not] be true at Pinehurst No. 2, but it's dangerous to expand the argument to other golf courses, because Mr. Ross didn't say anything about them.
The funny thing is, Pete Dye has always been one of the biggest fans of Pinehurst No. 2 ... so it's odd for him to be saying the greens are not what they're meant to be. Without its greens, No. 2 wouldn't be very highly regarded, would it?