Henry Longhurst wrote in 1958
"... I have to think of myself as something of a connoisseur of bars...but I think that the surroundings in which you drink make a great deal of difference and that many golf clubs have been very unimaginative in the sitting and decor of what after all is the 'happiest' room in the club."
"Though it is not every club that is lucky enough to have the opportunity, there is nothing in my opinion to touch a bar with a view. The finest bar I have seen in any club in the world - and I have said this many times - is at the Thunderbird Club in the desert in California, where the Ryder Cup match was played some years ago. The course is as flat as a pancake, but there is a fine view of the mountains a few miles away, and as the sun sets behind them a magical peace comes over the scene, as in a tropical twilight, and even our American friends, if they will forgive me saying so, tend to fall silent."
"The bar at Thunderbird runs the length of a big room, parallel with the window looking out towards the mountains, but here is what makes it different. You sit down to the bar not on high stools, but on low leathers chairs and settees. Behind these the floor is raised so that those who sit at tables or stand up can see over the heads of those who are sitting down. Furthermore, the floor behind the bar is sunk a foot to 18 inches, so that the barmen, as they stand up, are about on the level, face to face, with those who are sitting down and do not obstruct the view."
" I have always wished that, while they were spending money on new bars at Turnberry and Gleneagles, where the views in their different ways are both 'out of this world', they had adopted this principle..."