I saw some this summer in Tennessee, Georgia, and South Carolina, but yes, courses that could afford it have changed from bent to some hybrid Bermuda. Given the quality of grasses today, I think older courses with bent would have used Bermuda when they built them.
Tommy,
I think there’s more to it than just money. There are new strains of bent, like Pure Eclipse, that courses with plenty of money have recently put in; Raleigh CC, which is the flagship of the McConnell Golf group, where money is plentiful, and Alamance CC have both done this.
My club will be hosting the NC Amateur next year, and not only are we still Bent grass, but our greens could hardly be better. Supers have gotten a LOT better at managing Bent in the heat of summer; I think they “follow the science” more now, instead of a formulaic schedule of two big core aeration’s per year like the old days. The courses in the SE that DO still have Bent, have better greens than they’ve ever had.
And, at the risk of getting deeper in the weeds than I should, I think some issues with Bermuda have cropped up. One is segregation; on courses that were early adopters of Champion, like Duke, you’ll see the grain change a couple of times on a long putt. Another issue with Bermuda, at least in certain areas, is the need to cover them in the cold. It takes a LOT of manpower to put the covers on and then to take them off, they sit by the greens for 5 months of the year, then have to be stored the rest of the time.