I played at a 9-hole course that charged $23 weekdays, which where I'm from is as cheap as you are going to get, and the course was in what I would consider to be good condition, albeit I probably have more realistic expectations than the average North American golfer.
For our climate (southern Ontario...hot and humid with very cold winters) what grasses would be the cheapest and easiest to maintain for good quality playing surfaces? What would be the options or best choices?
There's no short answer, I would defer to the superintendents on this board, but I'll give it a shot. The course you played was probably mostly poa annua, but was most likely bentgrass initially.
Greens: Bent is always the cool season grass of choice for greens, the only other option here would be fescue, but it's hard to pull of good fescue greens outside of Bandon and the UK. Plus there's not many superintendents that have experience with fescue putting greens. They also tend not to meld as well with the inevitable poa infestation.
Fairways: Bent, bluegrass, rye, and fescue would be the choices here. Bent is the most aesthetic, but it's expensive to manage well. Requires a lot of cultural practices to play well as it's a prolific thatch producer. Bluegrass is cheaper to maintain and easier to keep firm, but struggles when mowed low with disease pressures. So you may have to put up with a higher height of cut than you might like, plus it is slow to establish initially. Fescue is probably cheapest to maintain, but really struggles with cart traffic, so it's more for the walking only type course. Rye establishes quickly and tolerates low mowing heights and wear well, however disease pressures are a problem and it's quite vulnerable to winter kill.
Rough: Bluegrass is ubiquitous in the region so it's probably the call here.
TL;DR version: My guess is the best grasses for a low budget course would be bent greens with a blue/rye fairway blend mowed at a barely tolerable HOC, with blue in the rough.