The men who shuffle names and numbers on the sprawling green-and-white Masters scoreboard at the Augusta National Golf Club are among the most visible volunteers who work the annual golf tournament, and yet, they're practically invisible.

``We just kind of do what we do and blend into the scenery,'' said Lee Muns, supervisor of the course's main scoreboard.

At any given moment, he has a captive audience of thousands of patrons who swarm the first fairway. But they usually look right past him and his staff of four.

Running the scoreboard and other leaderboards is one of the most desirable volunteer jobs at Augusta National, counting at least two Masters participants - 1987 champion Larry Mize and Franklin Langham - among the ranks of former operators.

The job's reward, as with any volunteer position at the course, is the chance to play Augusta National. But scoreboard operators have the added benefit of being the first to find out how players are scoring from every corner of the course.

``Working here, we get to find out everything that happens,'' Muns said.

And the downside?

``We don't get to see anybody golf,'' he said.

Scoreboard operators can see golfers teeing off at the first hole and playing through on a few others, but the view, by and large, is of the backs of heads.

The operators say they still can almost always tell what's happening on the course by the size of the crowds and the length of the gasps from spectators: The biggest crowds are always with the leaders, and their reactions are a dead giveaway.

``You can tell the difference between an eagle roar and a birdie roar,'' Muns said. ``The eagle's a little bit deeper and a little bit longer. And you can always tell a miss - it's quick.''

Muns, 39 and a member of the Columbia County Board of Education, has been volunteering at the course since he was 15, first as a gallery guard, then working his way up to operating two of the course's smaller boards and finally to the main scoreboard, which his father supervised for 23 years before retiring.

His 16-year-old son, Chad, is working at the course for the first time this year as a litter collector, but Chad said he hopes to eventually work the scoreboard.

If there were a middle management at the main scoreboard, Chris Marsh would be it. In the hierarchy of scoreboard operations, he is the ladder guy, climbing up and down the rolling green stairs to replace magnetic numbers with updated scores at each play. He's one step above the person who pushes the ladder and one step below the person who hands a computer printout of scores to the ladder man.

The scoreboard will change more than 1,000 times in the course of four days of play, and each change requires a climb up the ladder.

``You get to be the first one to know the scores,'' Marsh said. ``And then you get to see the reaction from the crowd.''