I worked there in 1984, and I can assure you that it's much different. The greens were Tifdwarf, the bunkers had native sand in them, the roughs had a lot of Bahia grass, and it was maintained with the mindset that it was supposed to be a little rough around the edges. The greens were rebuilt in 1988, and that might have been the genesis of a look towards a more manicured look.
It is hard for anyone to remember but when the TPC was built in 1979-80 the USA was in the midst of a terrible recession and interest rates were through the moon. Both Mr. Dye and Commissioner Beman were concerned about the cost of maintaining the course and all of the "waste areas" were Pete's attempt to limit the amount of fine turf that had to be maintained. [Commissioner Beman compared them to Pine Valley.] I still have an old article from the USGA Golf Journal about the "low maintenance" TPC design.
Pete thought that they could just run a tractor with a drag mat through the waste areas once or twice a week to keep the weeds out, but that did not work in Jacksonville, because bermudagrass is much more aggressive than the typical weed. So the waste areas quickly became grassed over. When Bobby Weed became superintendent there, he started contouring those areas and treating big swathes of them more like bunkers.
Of course, after the success of the first couple of tournaments, the TPC became recognized as the home of the PGA TOUR, and from that point they wanted it perfectly maintained . . . it just wouldn't do for their home base to look scruffy around the edges. So the whole premise of the course was turned on its head, and it went from a low-maintenance design to a VERY HIGH MAINTENANCE design. All of the steep banks that weren't going to be maintained, are a bitch to maintain to a high standard. This taught me a valuable lesson about making long-term assumptions about how your course will be maintained.
Many years ago I sent someone here some of my original slides of the course from 1981 so they could post how the course looked then. I will look to see if I can find the thread, but it may well be gone, due to the demise of some photo-hosting sites. [EDIT: the only reference to this I could find was from a 2013 thread where I was traveling and the thread ended before any photos were posted. I do still have the slides, if someone wants to put them up somewhere.]