This is a complicated part of the world, where it’s best, unless qualified, to sail as close to sport as you can. Northern Ireland has been through a lot to get here, and there seems no use looking back, not now.
McIlroy is keen to look forward, not just to the four days ahead, but to what this Open Championship could leave behind.
“Sport has an unbelievable ability to bring people together. We all know that this country sometimes needs that.
“Talking of legacy, that could be the biggest impact this tournament has.
“(Northern Ireland) such a great place, no one cares who they are, where they’re from, what background they’re from. It doesn’t matter what side of the street you come from.
“We’re so far past that. And that’s a wonderful thing.”
There’s no doubt, however, that for the record-breaking crowds flocking to Portrush, focus is on the here and now. He may not be quite as local as Graeme McDowell, quite so involved in the process as Darren Clarke, but Rory is exactly what he says he’s not: the centre of attention.
It was here at Portrush that Rory met Darren, a present from his dad for turning 10, and two decades later he arrives for the Open Championship as favourite to win his fifth major and second Claret Jug.
“Portrush, at least the golf club, has been a big part of my upbringing. It's sort of surreal that it's here.
“Even driving in yesterday, when you're coming in on the road and you look to the right and you've got the second tee, I think like, I don't know who was teeing off, maybe Tony Finau and someone else, sort of strange to see them here.
“But it's really cool. It just sort of shows what we've done in terms of players. G-Mac winning the U.S. Open, Darren winning The Open, and then some of the success that I've had.
“And how Northern Ireland has come on as a country that we're able to host such a big event here again.”
On Thursday, the talking stops and McIlroy heads out to a golf course he knows so well that he cut short a practice session last weekend to go for dinner with his mum.
“I've played well here before. I know what I'm doing around here. I sort of was worried, I got here last Saturday thinking the course is going to change, the setup for an Open might be different. And I got here, and it's still the same place.
“I've played this place enough times to know where to miss it, where not to miss it, where the good leaves are. No matter if there's grandstands around or if there's not, or if there's a lot of people or if there's not, it's the same golf course.”
And it’s the same Rory. He’s older, wiser perhaps, but just as honest as he always has been.
At the 2014 Open Championship, McIlroy teased reporters about his ‘mantra’ for the week which, in the end, turned out to be no more than the words ‘process’ and ‘spot’.
Five years on, and his time meditating leading him to the phrase, ‘look around and smell the roses’. On the one hand McIlroy says he’s preparing as he would for any other tournament, on the other he understands the important of embracing a once-in-a-lifetime experience.
“This is a wonderful thing for this country and golf in general, and to be quite a big part of it is an honour and a privilege.
“I want to keep reminding myself of that, that this is bigger than me, right? This is bigger than me.”
He’s right, of course. But not by much.
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