Rory and Tiger: Together again

'You've got to beat the guy you're taking over from to feel that you're the top guy, and Rory's starting to do that now,' says Norman, who spent 331 weeks at No. 1, second only to Tiger's 623.

He notices, too, that Woods is far friendlier with McIlroy than he has been, historically, with rivals, which Norman feels betrays insecurity.

'What I'm seeing is that Tiger's really intimidated by Rory,' he says. 'When have you ever seen him intimidated by another player? Never.

'But I think he knows his time's up and that's normal; these things tend to go in 15-year cycles.

'Jack took it from Arnold (Palmer). I took it from Jack, Tiger from me and now it looks like Rory's taking it from Tiger.'

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'And I don't mean that as a negative to Tiger, because he's got 14, but the years are in Rory's favor,' he says.

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'Now, there's a lot of X factors that we don't know yet with Rory. As I said, he's got a lot to learn ' learning how to win when you don't have your best game ' and we don't know yet how he's going to deal with all the scrutiny that comes with being No. 1, but just because he's so good and so young, I have to go with him.'

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'I used to say in my early or even mid-20s that it doesn't take long for a Rolls Royce to warm up. But the older you get, you can't do that anymore.

'By the time you get to your mid-30s, the repetitive motion of hitting a golf ball leads to all kinds of issues, and if you look at Tiger, you can see that's true. He's got Achilles problems, knee problems; the signs are all there of a decay that's inevitable.'