I may be shouted down for this, but it looks so much better in the photo than it does today!
Chris,
I think I'm inclined to agree with you.
It may be just the angle on the photo, but the entrance to the green looks to have narrowed substantially over the years.
Matt,
It's not just the angle, the entrance is definitely narrower now than it was, and both front bunkers have pushed into the green (due to erosion over the years) - not only narrowing the gap but increasing the slope also.
The vegetation you see on Neil's photo left of the hole would have protected the left bunker especially from erosion. Now that a lot of the vegetation up near the green is gone, erosion is more of an issue.
The gap, erosion and slope were even more noticable a few years ago before Mike did some subtle restoration work on the front left bunker to restore the face and reduce some of the slope off the bunker edge.
Interestingly, the green size in 1963 was 585 sq.m, compared to 481 sq.m in 2004. The main 3 areas where some green was lost were the front (used to come further back toward the tee, as well as gap being larger), back (while the contours are similar, there used to be more green at the back) and over the left bunker (where the bunker has eroded into the green).