I don't think of Ross greens as small, although his comments about "modern" courses needing smaller greens due to the technology of the day makes it think like he intended to build small greens.
I found the comment about green sizes to be interesting as well. At least some of the early California courses reportedly had very large greens, and I've read that William Watson in particular built large greens (although I don't know if that holds true across all his work) so perhaps Ross's comments on green size has to be read as somewhat of a critique on what he had seen thus far in California.
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Sven and Joe,
I wasn't surprised that Pinehurst wasn't listed as a championship course for the reasons Joe mentioned, but it is interesting that as of 1922 Ross apparently didn't consider any of the courses he had built up to that point to be true championship courses.
As for the three courses mentioned, NGLA, Lido, and PV, there is no surprise there. They were often mentioned as the three best and most challenging in the country. Funny, though, that none of the three had ever hosted one of the actual "Championships."