There are two types of fescue, and they are extremely different.
Fine fescue (which includes hard, chewings, sheep, and creeping red fescues) is a cool-season grass. That's the wispy stuff in the roughs in the UK, and it's the finest-bladed grass on the fairways and greens, too.
Tall fescue is a warm-season grass, but it has a much thicker blade than fine fescue and makes for a nasty thick rough. The bunker faces at Pebble have a lot of tall fescue in them, but it's predominantly found in the southeastern US.
A lot of native grasses have been called "fescue" because they look a certain way, but they aren't fescue proper. [Not that long ago, people referred to long wispy grasses in northern Michigan as "heather", but it wasn't true heather, either.]
I do not believe that fine fescue could last one summer in the desert, although you could re-seed it every fall.