Even in the days of Jack Nicklaus partnering Arnold Palmer, golf's World Cup never had such red-hot favourites as Tiger Woods and David Duval when they tee off in Buenos Aires today.
Nicklaus and Palmer won the title four times together - in 1963, 1964, 1966 and 1967 - but the difference this time is that there is not one other member of the world's top 20 taking part.
The event has come under the umbrella of the World Golf Championships this year but, despite $1 million being on offer to the winning pair, more than twice the amount Woods and Mark O'Meara collected in Malaysia last November, the collection of stars is once more nothing like the organisers must have hoped for.
Ernie Els, Lee Westwood, Colin Montgomerie, Darren Clarke, Vijay Singh, Jesper Parnevik, Nick Price, Michael Campbell and Sergio Garcia are among those who could have represented their countries. But all chose not to.
It leaves world number one Woods and number four Duval as the inevitable centre of attention - and gives Woods the perfect chance to make it 12 victories in a year he and the sporting world will never forget.
Duval, the previous holder of the number one spot, concedes that his partner so dominates golf now that even he has been pushed firmly into the shadows.
"He is a one-man show - and it doesn't bother me," said the 29-year-old, asked by Woods himself to be his teammate this time.
"If I'd won three majors and 11 tournaments everybody would be talking about me and not about Tiger. But I didn't do that and you can't begrudge a guy for success. I'm not type of person."
Told that many people in South America watch golf on television only if he is playing, Woods replied: "Whatever the reason, whether it's me or someone else, it's neat to be part of the growth and it can only help the game in the end."
Woods is already looking ahead to next year. Three weeks shy of his 25th birthday and already the best recognised sportsman in the world, he says that we may not have seen the best of him yet.
"Hopefully, next year, I can duplicate, if not better, what I was able to do this year by just putting myself there more often," he said. "I have a lot of ambitions left, a lot of goals that I want to hopefully try and achieve in my career."
In between time, Woods said that he was tempted, on the recommendation of Duval to try a little snow-boarding in the Rockies.
The other team attracting attention are, of course, hosts Argentina and Eduardo Romero and Angel Cabrera do not mind at all that they have been paired with Woods and Duval in the opening fourball betterball.
But not so happy about that is Ireland's Paul McGinley, who with Padraig Harrington is in the group immediately in front along with South Korea.
"That's the worst possible draw," said McGinley, referring not to the company of the Koreans, but the likely stampede of fans while they are still putting.
His other concern as he and Harrington try to repeat their 1997 victory at Kiawah Island is the amount of sand in the bunkers. "It's more than we're used to - there will be a lot of balls plugging," he stated.
Romero, eagerly looking forward to the first World Cup to be staged in Argentina since 1970, agreed, but added: "That's a problem for the people that go in the bunkers. We've waited for this event to come here for 30 years and we are well prepared. We've been looking for a long time to give South American golf a place that we think it deserves."
Ian Woosnam, whose career earnings when he made his World Cup debut in 1980 were less than £5,000, is now the most experienced player in the 48-man field.
This is his 15th appearance in the event and, in Phil Price, Woosnam - victorious with David Llewellyn in Hawaii in 1987 - has a partner playing the best golf of his life this year.
Price, nearly £300,000 richer for finishing joint second behind Woods in the NEC world championship in August, finished eighth on the European Order of Merit, 16 places ahead of Woosnam, and was unbeaten in the Alfred Dunhill Cup at St Andrews in October.
In the absence of Montgomerie, Scotland pin their hopes of a first-ever win in the event on Paul Lawrie and Gary Orr and, with no Westwood, it is left to England's Jamie Spence and Brian Davis to try to repeat the success of Nick Faldo and David Carter two years ago.
Spence and Davis, along with Roger Chapman, were beaten in all three matches at the Dunhill Cup, but now make their World Cup debuts hoping to make their presence felt.
