It won't make sense to convert Chambers Bay greens to bent grass. If they replanted with bent, the native grasses would rapidly take over again. Up here in the Pacific Northwest, you simply have to wait out the painful transition to a finer strain of Poa annua. In ten years, Chambers Bay's greens will be good, and in twenty years they will be great.
It's so painful to see how flowery and inconsistent the greens are this weekend. The broadcast is putting a brave face on it, but the Poa is just going wild on the greens. In five years those greens will be well over 50% poa, whether you like it or not.
You have to wonder how the negotiations went. "Are the greens going to be OK?" "Oh yes, sure, they'll be great." Somebody familiar with the Pac NW golf history had to know this was inevitable.
JK, regarding fescue for greens, both Bandon Trails and Old Macdonald have been marvelous for putting the last few years, fast and smooth, though Trails has now reached the point where they're going to have to deal with transition to the dominant native. Maybe they'll keep building new courses every few years down there so I can play linksy golf on smooth fescue forever. That's the plan.