The social fabric of a club is as crucial as it is delicate, IMO.
For many, it's what makes the club what it is and drives their desire to belong.
Certainly this "drinking culture" at Deal is part of a fantastic social culture -- though not, I would argue, what underpins that culture -- that makes the club such a wonderful place to spend time.
I'm not one for an early morning tipple before golf (I don't mind a brekkie beer when the occasion warrants it, just not before I'll be swinging golf clubs), but I like what it represents at RCP.
The fact that you can get a drink at fairly well any time of the day but we only do a posh lunch on a Sunday, that golf clothes can be worn almost everywhere in the house but we do have a very nice jacket and tie room, that rules are really quite few but are adhered to strictly... these are the things that to me represent a fantastic culture that it makes me really glad to be a part of -- even from 15,000km away.
And even though those things don't singularly make the club what it is, if you start changing them you threaten that club culture and atmosphere that make Royal Cinque Ports what it is -- a club that with great success is both a local members' club and a weekend escape for Londoners, boasts publicly educated local firemen (and B&B operators) as members who mingle brilliantly with some of the poshest toffee in England.
It's a wonderful place, and I'd agree with Sev and Mark that any change that threatened to erode that would be misguided.