Sean,
Thanks for the response. I do understand what you are getting at. With some tens of thousands of courses in the US, I agree that it is probably safe to say that some courses are overwatered. I think the point of this thread was mainly that many courses do get unjustifiably labelled overwatered because of one golfers one bad experience at one particular moment in time. To this end, I agree with the original poster that at least 95% of the supers I know and of courses that I am familiar with are extremely water concious and would only irrigate to an "overly wet" state if some maintenance task called for it.
In answer to your other questions, though somewhat off the topic, I would say yes, there are definetely certain grasses that are better suited for certain regions than others. I can speak personally for my area here in the northern valley of CA, in my opinion, Bentgrass greens with Bermudagrass everywhere else would be the most efficient combination. Bentgrass, especially in USGA greens, can be watered deeply and infrequently, tends to get less disease (from my experience) and requires less nitrogen. The same holes true for Bermudagrass over other grass types for the rest of the course. And while it still may take a similar amount of water to keep greens alive and healthy due to the traffic and stress they receive, the rest of the course would most definetely use less water with Bermuda since it is an extremely drought tolerant plant with deep rooting systems even in tough, compacted soils.
That being said, I think golfers of all types and abilities would agree that diversity in courses is part of the enjoyment of the game. We have Bent greens with wall to wall Ryegrass, which is extremely difficult to keep alive in the summer heat, and uses more water and slightly more nutrients to keep healthy. However, we are also the second highest priced daily fee course in the area. The reality is the course was designed and grown to create a certain experience for the golfer, as we are one of very few courses in the area with this combination of playing surfaces, and we've passed the higher costs of maintenance on the customer to let them make the decision on what they'd want to play on, and we are still holding our own with revenues, even in these tough times.
Basically, if supers could grow a course the way they wanted to, without having to worry about business, member requests, public opnion, owners desires and whims, etc etc I think you would see alot of courses with a much different look and feel.