After a number of nights eating in restaurants, you begin to crave home cooking. On my recent trip to the Southeast, I had the golfing equivalent of that feeling. Then I encountered the Aiken Golf Club, a small-town course that served up a dish of southern soul food so delicious it had to be homemade.

You will find Aiken GC on very few lists. It lives in the shadow of its neighbor Palmetto GC as well as the nearby Sage Valley GC, Augusta CC, and Augusta National. But what makes Aiken stand out from that group is its accessibility, its weekend rate of $25, and its do-it-yourself backstory.