I am sure the turf standards are significantly better even at Pine Valley than 25 years ago.
Chris,
if this is true then why do they need life support systems now? This desire for speed is industry driven and not for the good of the game, the clubs or the golfer. The only people benefitting is big business 
Jon
I think that these tools are used as we have continued to push grasses to the edge in terms of mowing heights in search of faster speeds and faster speeds on a more consistent basis. I am not sure I'd agree that the desire for speed is industry driven versus say golfer driven. Once golfers are given a taste of championship quality, smooth, fast greens who can blame them for no longer accepting what was once acceptable--greens in the 7-8 speed range.
I would love to have healthier greens mowed at .150 instead of being caught up in the arms race of green speed and I am in the business. Golfers today are less interested in the merits of the course or the common cameraderie of membership and more interested in impressive facilities and fast greens. I am not wholly unsympathetic to that. Why not want the best and why not want it as often as possible? It comes at a price that more and more will find too expensive and I see the trend developing where the high end will continue to have sufficent capital to pay for that experience and where there is a race to the bottom for everyone else to see what the level it is that golfers will accept as standards decline. Along the way, alot of really solid courses and clubs will get crushed.
I don't want to sound too defensive as someone in the business as I also am a dues paying member at a club and I appreciate the desire for getting value for what I pay for. As much as JK can push buttons though, I think he is dead on when he points out (harshly at times) that golfers expecting top notch conditions must pay for it and many golfers have totally unrealisitc expectations as to what costs go into maintaining a course at a high level. There are also those that want golf at $25 per round and don't understand that in most US locations, that is simply not possible unless you are playing a course with what most would consider poor conditions. Golf is expensive in this country.
Maybe Melvin is right and courses should not be built in those places it is ill suited for
That surely wouldn't be growing the game though.
It would be less expensive and healthier for the grass to have a higher height of cut in most every situation. But, golfers will not accept a step back even if it is for the good of the game, better for the environment and more sustainable financially. Golfers, understandibly, will simply hop from course to course in search of the best experience (i.e. for Americans, lush turf, big clubhouses and fast greens) and those that can't provide that will close with a few in high population areas perhaps hanging on as "pastures" of cheap golf that can push high volume.
In sum, no operater I know in "the industry" is pushing for faster greens. "Big business" in this case is a bogeyman and excuse for giving golfers a taste of what was not sustainable for many faciltiies.
PS I speak of this as an operater who has a 38 year history of not one operating or capital assessments and a dues structure 30% less than most of my surrounding courses. Good, affordable golf is possible but even what I offer is "expensive". If the industry was guilty of anything it was not recognizing how expensive a game golf is even at "lesser" clubs. The elite clubs, particualrly a PV is so off the charts "unreal" in terms of cost for 99% of golfers it is a shame that their level is held up as one that should be strived for.
We live in a society that has "jumbo" mortgages, people making $50k driving around in Mercedes and Lexus cars, and where we are in a Catch-22 in some reagrds with consumer debt and spending which is ridiculously high and yet neccesary to keep the economy moving along. It's not just this generation. For example, prior to WW II the notion of mortgaging the next thirty years of one's life to pay for a house would have been considered nuts. I am not suggesting that home ownership and the use of mrtgage debt wasn't overwhelmingly a positive thing but our mindsets have changed enormously and bigger, badder, faster, and more expensive is "par for the course" with little regard in some cases to cost .