Wayne,
You asked the right question. No, they are not the same sizes as when Tilly designed and the course opened. For example, Bethpage Black's greens are between 25-30% smaller than when originally designed. The dynamic undulations that so many complain are missing from the "normal Tillinghast" greens actually are there, they are just buried beneath areas that are now rough and fringe.
That is also why some areas of a few greens have now been slightly expanded and that strong consideration to expanding other areas on other greens after the 2009 Open is being given and will probably take place.
We all know that poor maintenance practices reduce green surfaces. Sometimes though the practices are purposeful and not done by lazy workers. A good example of this is Winged Foot.
Several years ago Neil Regan discovered that large areas of original putting surfaces on both courses were no longer there. He showed me a photo of #18 the green on the West course where a maintenance cart sat in the back left rough of the green, yet another photograph with Bobby Jones putting during the 1929 Open shows that same area to be putting surface.
After some investigation as to how it happened he learned that in the early 1940's, due to severe financial problems the club was experiencing, they faced a really tough choice. Either let the East course go back to ground and no longer do work on it or cut back the maintenance on the West and use that money to keep up the East. That is what they chose to do. The greatest savings and cut-back was in the area of work on the greens of both courses, specifically purposefully shrinking the area of putting surfaces by 25% and more.
Pat, in the case of Tilly's design philosophies for greens, they begin with the green entrances. That is why his greens usually seem to rise out of the fairway rather than be pushed up from the ground. Even after the ground game was pretty much gone in his time, he still planned for its use as the means of finalizing green design.
He also didn't like the use of fringes around putting surfaces prefering to have the green just that much larger and many times he would run the putting surface itself up to the crest of the moundings that defined the green complex. It is that aspect that has caused a number of architects, both prominent and not, to mistakenly state that Tilly would "tuck his bunkers" into the greens: this is incorrect. He actually ran the poutting surfaces out to the bunkers.
Is this basically the same thing? Yes. Is it then just a case of semantics? NO it is not. The reason is that one line of reasoning accentuates what Tilly would do with bunker design and placement whereas the other, and correct one, is about his philosophy in green surface design. Because he planned on putting surfaces to run out to certain areas and they now longer do, planned shot angles and values for those fr0om tee to green are changed.
Consider, a hole cut behind or to the side of a grenside bunker and is located 8 feet from the edge of a putting surface is in a MUCH different location and faces far more undulation in surface if the putting surface itself is extended out to the edge of the bunker rather than there being a 1-2 foot fringe and collar between.
It is that very important aspect of his green designs that have been lost on a majority of his courses either purposefully or not that have the greatest impact on his designs and how they are played and appreciated.
The next time one of you raters play BB look at the edges of the putting surfaces in relation to the mounding that defines the green complexes. Ask yourself how fun adn wild they would instantly become if the green surface ran out that far... and that is where they were designed to be.
I just looked at a Tilly course where the greens were purposefully made smaller not once, but on 4 different occasions. Each time they would end up moving the bunkers in closer to the greens because they were now "too far away." Today they want to get back to what Tilly "originally designed."
A bit of irony there I think... Sorry for the length and time to step down off the soap box.
