Thunderbird Country Club opened on January 9, 1951, as the Coachella Valley's first 18-hole golf course, on the site of Frank Bogert's Thunderbird Ranch. Bogert had turned 663 acres into a dude ranch in 1946: 22 cabins, 40 horse stalls, a western clubhouse, and a Hollywood guest list that still wanted a proper course. Johnny Dawson, a top amateur looking to build that course, put together investors that included Bob Hope (member number 01), Bing Crosby (02), Randolph Scott (03), Leonard Firestone, Ralph Kiner, Desi Arnaz and Lucille Ball, Phil Harris, and Alice Faye. Lawrence Hughes designed the golf. Dawson, as club president, and Hughes hit the ceremonial first balls. The published address today is 70-737 Country Club Drive, Rancho Mirage. The club still calls itself the Home of Golf in the Coachella Valley, a claim that is chronology rather than advertising.
Hughes had family ties to Donald Ross's construction world; his father Henry T. Hughes had worked under Ross. The Thunderbird round is a traditional desert parkland that later hosted the Ryder Cup and the Palm Springs Golf Classic, the tournament now known as The American Express. Bing Crosby was club champion in 1958. Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz lived facing the ninth and 18th. Presidents who played here include Dwight Eisenhower, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, and Barack Obama. Ford and Betty later lived at the club. The club's own story pages credit Thunderbird as the place the golf cart was invented, and as the namesake of the Ford Thunderbird. Treat both as club history, widely repeated, and still worth tagging as the club's account. Tennis, pickleball, fitness, dining, and member cottages sit on the current amenity list. Confirm categories on thunderbirdcc.org. Initiation is not a public rate card on this page.
Like many clubs of its decade, Thunderbird's early membership was restricted. That fact is why Tamarisk Country Club opened in 1952 as the valley's second 18-hole course, founded by Jack Benny, Danny Kaye, George Burns, the Marx Brothers, and others who were not invited. The two clubs still sit in the same Rancho Mirage band and should not be blended in a showing. Across Highway 111, Thunderbird Heights is a distinct guard-gated hillside with its own Developments page, a pedestrian tunnel to the club, and no automatic membership. Residential product on the club campus is limited, custom, and historic. There is no public floor-plan PDF library.
A Thunderbird-labeled listing may be the club, the Heights, Cove, Terrace, Villas, or another pod. Name the association. Then ask Membership whether a card is even available. The ranch became a course. The course became a city. The paperwork did not get simpler.
Rancho Mirage later billed itself as the Playground of the Presidents. Thunderbird is a large part of why. Ford's house at the club is the residential fact; Obama's rounds are the guest fact. Neither is a membership shortcut. The current club is a multi-generational private club with cottages, racquets, and a social calendar set against Santa Rosa and San Jacinto views. Read thunderbirdcc.org for the live amenity list, then read the Heights page if the listing is on the hill.
Start in 1951, then read this year's bylaws. Norman Williams and Jacqulyn Stanton of The Stanton Williams Group at Compass work with buyers and sellers at Thunderbird Country Club. Reach Norman at 760.464.2190 or Jacqulyn at 760.702.2557.