AUGUSTA, Ga. - Few people would disagree that the best action at the Masters comes on Sunday afternoon.
But some of the best viewing opportunities come on the first two days.
Like in most majors, tournament organizers put together some interesting groupings for the opening two rounds.
Sometimes they group legends with other legends, young guns with other young guns and maybe even throw together a couple of guys that don't like each other.
And there are always one or two super-groups.
Those are the groups with the most top-level players. At a tournament like the Masters, there are often multiple super-groups.
As soon as the pairings came out Wednesday evening, I went to work on which group would be the best to follow right away in the morning.
Soon I realized, I couldn't limit it to just one.
I started out the day following what I decreed as the tournament's main super-group - Vijay Singh, Ernie Els and Geoff Ogilvy. All three are major championship winners. It doesn't get much better than that.
Few would disagree that Els is a little past his prime. Singh is getting up there in age, too, but he played so well at the end of last year, it's tough to say he still won't compete to win majors.
But Ogilvy was the one to watch in that group. Although he basically lucked into winning his major when Phil Mickelson melted down at Winged Foot, Ogilvy will definitely win another major - probably in the near future.
Following this group had an extra bonus - just two groups behind the trio was the super-group of Mickelson, Camilo Villegas and Jim Furyk.
Mickelson and Furyk are both major winners and Villegas is considered one of the top young players in the game. All three were dressed in black.
They looked like a gang of outlaws from a western movie. Either that or part of a team golfing in a scramble at a convention of Johnny Cash fanatics.
And the group in between the super-groups wasn't half bad either. It included major winners Mike Weir and Padraig Harrington as well as Ryuji Imada.
Of the nine players, Imada was the only one who stuck out like a sore thumb. It would be sort of like if I suited up for an NBA basketball team. Like me running around with a bunch of 7-footers, he just didn't belong.
One of my favorite things about going to the Masters is watching the players try to fight out of trouble. Every single player in the field will hit at least a few bad shots this weekend, and despite the low scores Thursday, there were plenty of them to be found.
On No. 7, Ogilvy blasted his drive into the pine trees. The people in charge of crowd control tried to get everyone to clear a lane for his next shot.
"You might want to move back just a hair," Ogilvy said after surveying the situation.
Considering he just blasted it 50 feet off the fairway, it was probably a good piece of advice.
I continued to follow the super-groups onto the back 9.
Watching the action from between Nos. 13 and 17, the terrible shot total multiplied in a matter of minutes.
Bernhard Langer, teeing off on No. 17, jacked one nearly on to the No. 13 fairway. In the very next group, Henrik Stenson did the same thing and Angel Cabrera jacked one into the pines. In the next group, my man Ogilvy hit his drive into the trees, then nailed a low sizzler into the stands to the left of the green. A patron in the eighth row threw his ball back to him so he could take a drop.
"It's reassuring to know that they can do what I do," one spectator said.
I couldn't agree more.
With the morning super-groups nearly back at the clubhouse, I picked up with the final group of the day to tee off- the teenage super-group.
If you guessed it was the Jonas Brothers, you'd be wrong. This group included Irish golfer Rory McIlroy, Ryo Ishikawa of Japan and US Ryder Cup hero Anthony Kim.
Kim, at 23, was the elder statesman of the group. Ishikawa, who is only 17, is the second-youngest competitor ever to play at the Masters. McIlroy doesn't turn 20 for almost another month, but already finished last season as one of the top 50 players in the world.
You can't mention super-groups without dropping this name - Tiger Woods. Woods was just one group ahead of the teenagers, although his fellow competitors in the group were barely notable.
There were dozens of great golfers on the course Thursday, but as usual, the biggest herd of fans followed Tiger. He's so popular, he could be in a group with me and my mailman and it would be considered a super-group.
As I stood near the No. 11 fairway waiting for the teenage super-group, one patron who wasn't even in his teens yet was waiting for his idol to pass by.
"You can't get a look at Tiger if you try to follow him around," he said.
As we waited for Tiger to tee off, I hypothesized that he would hit an errant tee shot and it would land right next to us, giving us a front row seat for his second shot.
"If his ball was coming right at you, would you jump out of the way or just let it hit you?," I asked the youngster.
He shrugged.
"Probably let it hit me," he said.
That's the power of Tiger.
(Chris Bieri is a sportswriter for the Minot Daily News. He can be reached via email at cbieri@minotdailynews.com)