Craig,
You have suggested that the USGA had a bias against fescue greens and have inquired about the factors that led to the USGA saying that fescue was not a suitable turf for putting greens.
I don't think there was any bias at all. With the advent of systematic turfgrass research in the early part of the 20th century, it became obvious that creeping bentgrass produced a superior year-round putting turf for almost all northern golf courses.
Beautiful lawns of red fescue could be established, and they produced a fine turf in spring and fall. However, Fred Taylor's lawns of red fescue in Philadelphia were decimated by fungal diseases in the summer. On putting greens, even as early as 1916, it was well-known that fescue thinned when mowed at the desired cutting height for putting greens. An article in 1924 (Journal of the American Society of Agronomy) explained the morphological differences between red fescue and creeping bentgrass that led to thinning of fescue (but not bent) under low mowing heights on putting greens.
Even so, many courses did continue to use fescue, either on its own or mixed with bentgrass. In 1912, Hugh Wilson seeded greens at Merion to a mixture of creeping bent, Rhode Island bent, and red fescue. He subsequently wrote, "when reseeding our greens, which we have done either once or twice a year, we have used nothing but creeping bent, as the red fescue did not grow well in our greens."
At Columbia Golf Club, near Washington D.C., a mixture of red fescue and creeping bentgrass was also used to seed and overseed putting greens. However, these greens proved unsatisfactory, and a much improved surface was obtained with pure creeping bentgrass beginning in 1919.
C.B. Macdonald seeded some greens at National Golf Links to red fescue, some to various bents, and some as a mixture of bents and fescue. He reported that fescue made a fine putting surface but that in the summer months at Long Island it becomes brown sooner than the bents. If by brown he meant dormant, then we can imagine what sort of recuperative advantage creeping bentgrass would have over fescue if summertime play created wear and tear on the greens.
It is clear that fescue was given a fair chance as a putting surface at many of the best clubs in the USA. Creeping bentgrass consistently produced a better putting surface, and by the 1920's the newly established Green Section of the USGA was overwhelmed with requests for advice on converting existing greens to pure stands of creeping bentgrass. The Green Section provided unbiased information on this subject, and it was obvious by the early 1920s which grass provided an optimum putting surface under most conditions in the northern United States.