Rory McIlroy is determined to embrace the pressure of his Open Championship homecoming as he made a swift start to his tournament preparations in Northern Ireland.
The World Number Two is inevitably the star attraction as he returns to the Antrim Coast this week amid great expectations, only raised by a runner-up finish at the Genesis Scottish Open on Sunday.
McIlroy missed the cut when The Open made its long-awaited return to Northern Ireland at Royal Portrush in 2019, and he hopes his performance this time matches the local fever-pitch excitement surrounding his bid for a second Claret Jug.
“I think in 2019 I probably tried to isolate, and I think it's better for everyone if I embrace it,” he said at his pre-tournament press conference on Monday.
“I think it's better for me because it's nice to be able to accept adulation, even though I struggle with it at times.
“But it's also nice for the person that is seeing you for the first time in a few years. It just makes for better interaction and not trying to hide away from it.
“I think it's more a case of embracing everything that's going to come my way this week and not try to shy away from it or hide away from it, and I think that'll make for a better experience for everyone involved.”
In 2019, McIlroy was left holding back the tears after his Open dreams were dashed from the start after his first tee shot went out-of-bounds, before a Friday dash to try and play his way into the final two rounds fell short by one shot.
Reflecting on that experience and the lessons learned from it, the 36-year-old said: “You get to an Open, it's a major championship, everything that comes along with it.
"I just think that that feeling, the walk to the first tee and then that ovation, I was still a little surprised and a little taken aback, like geez, these people really want me to win.
“I think that brought its own sort of pressure and more internally from myself and not really wanting to let people down. I guess it's just something I didn't mentally prepare for that day or that week.
“But I learned pretty quickly that one of my challenges, especially in a week like this, is controlling myself and controlling that battle.”
Since then, he has of course completed the career Grand Slam with victory at the Masters in April – a victory which he described as “climbing his Everest”.
While winning the Green Jacket was for so long the objective that had eluded him, producing a strong performance on his return to Portrush – where he shot a course-record 61 as a 16-year-old – stood alongside as a main priority for the year.
Having arrived in Northern Ireland from Scotland in the early hours of Monday, the five-time Major champion was out on the course for a practice round at 7am.
Crowds of around 280,000 people are expected to descend on Portrush this week – the most for an Open venue outside of St Andrews – and McIlroy was immediately the focus of great spectator interest despite it being just the second official practice day.
“I didn't come up here ahead of time to try to get a couple of practice rounds in, so I just wanted to get out early, sort of beat the rush, beat the crowd, and do my work with not a lot of people around,” he said as practice was briefly halted due to the threat of a thunderstorm.
“So that was the reason that I did that today. It worked out well.
"Obviously, we had that weather delay there, and it was nice to get 18 holes in early and feel like I got a productive day of work in.”
