Dan, I think more of it has to do with weather than we often realize.
In the summer heat, it's not as simple as just turning off the sprinklers in much of the US. When it's hot, many courses need water to survive. There's a limit to how much you can push bentgrass in the transition zone, for instance.
I grew up in Kentucky but moved to Wisconsin a few years ago. I remember being puzzled by the fact that greens didn't always hold approach shots like the ones in KY did. Eventually I realized that Wisconsin's cooler weather allowed them to put less water on greens, and in turn keep them firmer. Now that I've moved back to the Ohio Valley, it's frustrating to always be playing on soggy greens when the weather gets nice, but that's the reality of keeping greens alive in 90+ degree weather.
I doubt, in this economy, that courses are looking to water more than they need to. While some courses are stuck in a neverending pursuit of "lush," a lot of them just do what they can to keep the grass alive.