Ira:
Unfortunately, no one writes a history of something that is growing half an inch per year for 20 years, which is what I believe happened to the greens at Pinehurst #2 in the 1950s and 60s. There isn't anyone around who says that the greens were renovated or changed over that period. That's not to say they didn't fall off to the sides originally, but they didn't do it as severely.
Pete Dye was adamant that those greens were not that high when he played the course regularly in the 1940s, and that topdressing was the means of change. I believe him because I saw what happened to Yeamans Hall over the same period; they shrunk their greens before the buildup started, and over time the smaller area became built up a foot above the rest of the green pad.
The contractor Ed Connor did rebuild the greens c. 1990 when they were converted to bent grass; he mapped the greens as they were then, and tried to preserve them as best he could, although he admitted at least one deliberate change to me, on the 18th.
Pinehurst Resort used to deny that anything had changed, because they sell Donald Ross's legacy so hard that they didn't want to admit the course had evolved after Ross's death. They don't deny it anymore, but they don't bring it up much, either.