natchez — For the first time since leaving Beau Pré Country Club late last year, Dwayne David returned to the course for which he was golf pro of for nearly three years.

David teamed with Richard Edgin to shoot a 6-under-par 66 Saturday to take the outright lead in the championship flight of the 2009 Beau Pré/Budweiser Member-Guest Invitational.

“Ricky got us off to a good start and played solid all day,” David said. “We had six birdies. It wasn’t much roll off the fairways. The greens were rolling perfect. We made a bunch of 15- to 20-foot putts.”

The team of Tom Matthews and Jeff Anderson is just one shot back at 5-under-par 67, but Anderson said the duo could have had a better score.

“We had five birdies today. We struggled out there,” Anderson said. “We should’ve had a couple of more birdies. Chipped in for birdie on 18. That helped. We only missed one green and that was on 13. The greens were rolling fast. The course is in good shape.”

In addition to the birdie on the last hole, Anderson and Matthews had birdies on Nos. 4, 9, 10 and 12. Oddly enough, Matthews didn’t make a single birdie putt the entire round.

Three more teams are in contention at 3-under-par 69 — Jody Helbling and Marc Noel; Howard and Lee Jones; and Jackson Bryant and Tommy Geoghegan.

Four teams sit atop the first flight at 1-under-par 71 — Lawrie Cloutier and Wesley Rogers; Jason Rooks and Joel Dupre’; Jerry Beauchamp and Al Conn; and Dee Barron and Keith Rayborn. Chris Kelley and Robin Punches as well as Mark Carter and Woody Allen are one shot behind at even-par 72.

The scoring was higher in the first round this year then in previous year and that was probably expected considering how much rain fell at Beau Pré over the last several days. Thankfully, the weather cleared out just in time for the 72 players in this year’s tournament, which consists of two-man teams.

Today’s final round will have split tees, meaning some teams will start on No. 1 and others will start on No. 10. Tee times will start at noon.

As for the turnout for this year’s Member-Guest Invitational, course superintendent Tom Bryant said it is one of the tournament’s best ever.

“This is about the most we’ve ever had. I was hoping for 40 teams and we got 36 teams. We’ve got a good representation from membership,” he said. “The course is in good shape. We’ve had a lot of events and we’ve been a few people short in each of them. I guess the economy has a lot to do with that.”