By PATRICK JONES

The Natchez Democrat

NATCHEZ — Tom Matthews and playing partner Jeff Anderson shot a final-round 7-under-par 65 Sunday afternoon to finish with a two-day score of 12-under-par 132 to run away with first place in the championship flight at the 2009 Beau Pré/Budweiser Member-Guest Invitational.

“We did pretty good today. This is a real fun tournament with a lot of good players,” Anderson said. “We birdied 2, 4, 6 and 8 on the front and 10, 12 and 18 on the back.”

This was the second time Matthews was one-half of the winning team in this tournament, having also won back in 2006 with Jason Rooks. He described their final-round play as a good team effort

“We missed one green all day and two for the whole tournament,” Matthews said. “It was a better day (for me).”

“Tom played real good today. He played championship golf,” Anderson said. “He made one birdie and two good pars for us.”

The team of Christian Krueger and Casey Ham came out of nowhere to finish in second place in the championship flight. After shooting a 2-under-par 70 on Saturday and then bogeying No. 3 after back-to-back pars to start their round on Sunday, Krueger and Ham rallied thanks to six birdies to shoot a 5-under-par 67 for a two-day total of 7-under 137.

“It wasn’t too bad. My partner played excellent,” Krueger said. “(Ham) shot 67 on his own ball. I didn’t play as well as I did yesterday. It took us a while to get our first birdie and that was on No. 5.”

As for David and playing partner Richard Edgin, they struggled in the final round after taking the first-round lead on Saturday with a 66. The duo shot an even-par 72 to finish third at 6-under 138.

“We didn’t have any breaks today. We made nothing,” David said. “They (Anderson and Matthews) hit so many greens. They never were in any trouble. We had fun this weekend. It’s about coming back and seeing everybody.”

Before the top two teams in the championship flight finished their rounds, the team of Mark Carter and Woody Allen had the low round of the day as they shot a 4-under-par 68 to finish at 140, which was good enough to win the first flight.

“We had a good finish to the round. We birdied three out of the last four holes, but we had two bogeys in the round,” Allen said. “It was just nice to see a few putts fall.”

After a bogey on No. 14, Carter and Allen bounced back with birdies on 15, 16 and 17.

“Mark made a real big putt on 16 that gave us a little momentum,” Allen said. “We had six birdies and two bogeys. The weather was fantastic.”

Rooks and Joel Dupre’ would have won the first flight had it not been for a couple of rough holes, but they still managed to shoot a 2-under-par 70 to finish with a two-day score of 141 and second place in that flight.

“We shot a 2-under-par 70 with a double bogey on No. 13 and a bogey on No. 14,” said Dupre’, who is from Vidalia and lives in New Orleans. “We could’ve shot better today, but we missed a lot of putts.”

“We had a few wobbles and missed a couple of putts that could’ve gone in,” Rooks said.

The second flight had as close of a finish as any flight in any tournament in this area in recent memory. Only five shots separated the nine teams in the flight with Bub and Kirk Mullins rallying from a two-shot deficit to start the round thanks to a final-round 73 as they finished at 151.

Two teams started and finished in a tie for first place in the third flight. And both teams shot the same scores both days. Adrian Stallone and Bitt Hammons as well as Fred St. Clair and Dan McGuire shot back-to-back rounds of 79 for two-day scores of 158.