NATCHEZ — Last year Jordan Farmer was one of only two players to shoot under par both days at the Beau Pre Club Championship and he ended up winning it thanks to a final-round 68.

Farmer picked up where he left off last year and the scary thing is his first round on Saturday could have ended up even better than it wound up being — scary for the rest of the players in the championship flight, that is.

Farmer battled the heat and difficult course conditions to shoot an opening-round 3-under-par 69 for a two-shot lead over Howard Jones, Trampus Butler and Lloyd Trisler.

“I hit 17 greens. I putted the ball as good as I could. I just didn’t make a lot of putts,” Farmer said. “I had a bad drive on 17 which got me in trouble. If I had made some putts today, it would’ve been real awesome.”

The first-round leader had four birdies to go with the bogey on No. 17.

Farmer had a chance to make an eagle on the par-5 18th hole, but came up a bit short on a five-foot putt because, as he said, he didn’t want it to end up going by the hole. Farmer also had birdies on 2, 12 and 15.

After starting his round with a par on No. 1, Jones proceeded to bogey 2, 3 and 4 and just like that he was at 3-over-par and things didn’t look too good for him. But a birdie on No. 5 jump started his round and he ended up with five more birdies and just two more bogeys.

“It got started kind of slow,” Jones said. “I just hung in there and finished strong. Birdied 17 and 18. It was pretty tough. The rough’s higher than it’s been all year.”

Butler, who played with Jordan and Gary Farmer as well as Jay Lessley, fared quite well himself with a solid 1-under 71.