The Open 2019: Can Rory McIlroy withstand the tides of home pressure at rain-soaked Royal Portrush?

The favourite has skirted the pressure placed on him ahead of this week - but once the tournament starts there will be no hiding

Rory McIlroy steps a “surreal” foot into heaven tomorrow morning when he tees off in The Open Championship at a second home in Royal Portrush. The question, though, is whether the grey skies that soaked Northern Ireland on Wednesday afternoon will answer his call.

The hometown favourite has enjoyed a quiet build-up this week, skirting media attention and enjoying home comforts, but there is no hiding that he has every advantage at his disposal on a course where a wealth of his early memories were formed. This is, ultimately, his Open, and the burden of pressure that he's struggled to combat at the majors as of late will burn brighter than ever.

By way of golf’s bottomless catalogue of jumbled statistics, McIlroy is the most consistent player in the field coming into the year's final major, finishing outside the top-10 in just three of the events he has played all season. He has an intimate knowledge of the links’ nooks and crannies and wowed Thomas Bjorn when he took a shortcut on the dog-leg third that Europe’s Ryder Cup captain thought had been lost to the heather.

But the real truth for McIlroy is the chance to unlock the ingredient that has been missing from his game since the heady days of Valhalla: the vivid cockiness of youth. The 16-year-old arrogance of the boy who blistered his way to a course record 61 here and followed it up by swaggering onto the world stage. How he would give, at the cost of all maturity garnered since, to roll back time these next four days.

As always for McIlroy, his enemy is the spotlight and no matter how he attempts to divert it, make no mistake, it is shining in full blare. Ask anyone of the Northern Irish supporters roaming Portrush this week and they will tell you how they’ve travelled across counties to watch and will one of their favourite sons to the most famous of victories. As McIlroy himself acknowledged, he "might never get an opportunity to play an Open Championship here again."

For now, he insists he can’t feel those eyes on his back, that hometown grace has only left him feeling more relaxed ahead of the tournament, but come nine past ten tomorrow morning, those fans will be cramped in thick rungs behind the first tee-box and will be impossible to avoid.

“I think it's probably easier [to deal with the pressure] this week because it's such a big tournament,” he deflected in front of a packed press room that justified his semi-deity status in these parts. “You’ve got the best players in the world here. I’m from Northern Ireland and I'm playing at home, but I don't feel like I’m at that centre of attention. I’m here to enjoy myself.”

“I've always felt I've played my best golf when I've been totally relaxed and loose. And maybe that environment is what I need. I'm not saying that that's the way I'm going to approach it.”

Rory McIlroy braves the weather during a practice round at Portrush (Getty)

“I can't just put the blinkers on and pretend that's not all going on. One of my sort of mantras this week is: 'Look around and smell the roses'. This is bigger than me. And I think if you can look at the bigger picture and see that, it sort of takes a little bit of the pressure off. I still want to play well and concentrate and do all the right things, but having that perspective might just make me relax a little bit more.”

Enjoyment has been a word that’s lingered uneasily over McIlroy this year. There was quiet scoffing when he spoke of his reconfigured mindset and meditative routine ahead of the Masters last year, and after entering a firm favourite he fell flat from the moment his first drive skewed into the fescue.

Rory McIlroy is the favourite for The Open Championship (Getty)

He’s performed with brilliant consistency but has struggled to forge it into peaks in time for the majors. These five years of waiting were supposed to be the time he inherited Tiger Woods’ old world. At a course that plays like home, where nothing is a mystery, he's never had a better opportunity to kick-start that old vein of form he first conjured right here. He is, of course, more aware of that than anyone. And it won't take long to discover tomorrow whether that lines him with relish or tension.