Let me be the first pundit to tell you that Doug Ford, the man with the most Masters starts, won't be claiming his second green jacket come Sunday.

That's stepping out on a limb, ain't it?

There's much more of a curious eye toward another man pursuing his second coat and the chasers that nip at his heels.

We live in an Extreme Golf MTV generation, where 120 Minutes and The Grind and Spring Break from South Padre have grown with our Gen X lexicon. So in the grand tradition of Carmen Electra (does she have tradition?), let's play Singled Out to determine our 1998 Masters champion.

If you're old enough to be Matt Kuchar's grandfather, you're out. So thanks for the nostalgia Gary Player, Arnold Palmer, Raymond Floyd, Jack Nicklaus, Tommy Aaron, Charles Coody, Gay Brewer, Billy Casper and Jumb-Oh-for-outside-Japan Ozaki.

If you don't play golf for paychecks, you've yet to pay your dues, so say goodbye to Kuchar, Joel Kribel, Ken Bakst, Craig Watson and Tim Clark.

If you're trying to avoid being linked in sentences with Ian Baker-Finch, buh-bye Paul Azinger, Corey Pavin, Mark Brooks, John Cook, Nick Faldo, Sandy Lyle, Larry Mize, Fuzzy Zoeller, Seve Ballesteros, Jeff Sluman, Bob Tway and Ian Woosnam.

If you won a qualifying tournament with a hyphen, won a car or beat a Nike field to get in, aloha to Billy Ray Brown, Phil Blackmar, Michael Bradley, Bill Glasson, Tim Herron, Gabriel Hjertstedt, David Toms, Scott Simpson, Billy Mayfair and Frank Nobilo.

If your invitation snubbed Thomas Bjorn, adieu to Ignacio Garrido, Darren Clarke, Shigeki Maruyama and Retief Goosen.

If your highlights came during golf's other three majors, or you won enough dough playing hyphenated, car-rewarding tourneys, take plenty of snapshots Olin Browne, Scott McCarron, Mark O'Meara, Paul Stankowski, Bradley Hughes, Stewart Cink, David Ogrin, Andrew Magee, Willie Wood, Fred Funk, Jeff Maggert, Jay Haas, Stuart Appleby and Billy Andrade.

Eighty-eight to 33 pared in one fell swoop.

Here's where the cuts tend to get harder, the qualifications for green-coat inspection get scrupulous. These 33 have the most realistic chance of walking the 18th fairway, humming that tune.

The first team are guys with enough game but with terrible timing. Group Ben Crenshaw, Steve Elkington, David Frost, Bernhard Langer, Steve Jones, Jose Maria Olazabal, Brad Faxon, Craig Stadler, Tommy Tolles, Tom Watson and Lee Janzen together here.

They're the ones happy to make a weekend push, but in the end, they'll wind up dumped.

Team Two has shown glimmers of hope at Augusta National before but needs some magic sprinkles if they ever will host a Champions Dinner. We're talking of Tom Kite, Mark Calcavecchia, Jesper Parnevik, Costantino Rocca, Vijay Singh, Jim Furyk, John Huston, Lee Westwood, Per-Ulrik Johansson, Scott Hoch and Nick Price.

And group three is our superstar, cover of Sports Illustrated if they win, team. There's Tiger, of course, and Ernie Els (one Augusta round in the 60s in 13 tries), Justin Leonard, Greg Norman, Fred Couples, Davis Love III, John Daly, Phil Mickelson, David Duval, Tom Lehman and Colin Montgomerie.

Three from here will go to the winner's circle. I'll take Duval, Mickelson and Woods, truly an MTV advertisement.

Who will win? Well, if I knew that, I'd be playing Powerball in all six eligible states.

There's a whole bunch of data to crunch here, but on Singled Out, the winner is usually the one lucky enough to get all the questions right, not necessarily the prettiest one. Sorry, Tiger.

Come Sunday, it'll be Duval taking the title from Mickelson as the ``best player never to win a major.''