Melvyn,
With all due respect, one quote from hundreds of years ago is not proof positive that worms aid drainage. I have no doubt that in tight soils, the pore space they opened up improved percolation greatly. I have seen similar results with aerification holes and soil pulverizers that fix drainage, at least for a while, by making the soil less compact.
But, we could also probably find hundreds if not thousands of quotes, studies, articles, etc. showing how drainage is so important to turf that many other ways of handling it were developed for different situations by conscientious supers, engineers, builders and gca's. The Alison plan just posted shows that.
I am pretty sure you are not advocating for long soggy swales on golf courses. I suspect that you and many others object more to the rampant use of catch basins near greens especially to create the currently fashionable chipping areas, which are designed in to create more interest than repetitive bunkers. Depending on where they are located, they get drains in the bottom. And that makes golf courses look different than they did a hundred years ago, and a you don't like that look.
That of course is a fair enough opinion with which I wouldn't argue. But to argue that the old guys knew bette and relied on worms is, I think wrong, as is your notion that no one tried to profit from golf until the last twenty years or so. When do YOU think the altruism ended? I would date it no later than the OTM feud over the featherie, eh? Or the first time they sold a spectator ticket or charged an entry fee to the Open perhaps. If no one made money on golf, it wouldn't have survived as long and as well as it did.