Portrush ready to Ror

Is there any wonder Rory McIlroy is ready to embrace his tournament favouritism at Royal Portrush as the 2012 Irish Open gets underway today?

McIlroy heads a prominent list of Irish talent with the capability to land a home victory in front of at least 110,000 spectators after all four days sold out their 27,500 capacity for the first time at any regular European Tour event.

With a wet and windy week in prospect on the Antrim coast, starting with the worst of it today, the Dunluce links is set to offer the stiffest possible golfing challenge and Portrush resident Darren Clarke believes a little local knowledge will go a long way.

“Hopefully that will be a little bit of an advantage, as it will be to most of the Irish guys that have played here before,” Clarke said yesterday. “It’s a golf course you need to know a little bit [about], and definitely in bad weather.”

The fact McIlroy, Clarke, Graeme McDowell and even Dubliner Pádraig Harrington have more than a little local knowledge adds competitive spice to what is sure to be an emotional event for the Ulster golfers today.

Throw in another Portrush native in newly-crowned British Amateur champion Alan Dunbar, his former Walker Cup team-mate Paul Cutler, a rookie pro from down the road at Portstewart and fellow Ulsterman Michael Hoey, whose two wins in the past eight months include the Dunhill Links at St Andrews, and you quickly come to the conclusion this is a trophy destined to remain on these shores.

There has been pressure on the Irish to win their Open before, particularly during the wait for a successor to 1982 winner John O’Leary that took 17 years and Padraig Harrington to end. Yet for all his recent travails, a return to Ulster for the Irish Open for the first time since Belvoir Park hosted in 1953 and to Royal Portrush 65 years on from its last staging in 1947 is cause for current world number two McIlroy to feel at ease. Well, that and his course record here of 61.

“I can basically remember every shot,” McIlroy said of his feat when aged just 16 at the 2005 North of Ireland Championship. “I missed a six-footer on the first for birdie and could have been better.

“It was just one of those days where everything is on song. I turned on three under, birdied nine, eagled 10, birdied 11, parred 12 and 13, and then birdied my way in. Basically didn’t miss a shot from there.

“That was seven years ago; time goes pretty quickly. It’s a different golf course now, a few new tee boxes, and I couldn’t have gone one better that day when I did shoot 61. [This week] I’d take four 69s and see what happens I think.”

A lot may have changed since but following some uneasy outings in Killarney in 2010 and particularly last year when he carried a huge burden of expectation following his US Open victory, McIlroy is finally relishing his status as the hope of a nation.

“To be honest the last couple of years, I didn’t quite enjoy the tag of the home favourite.

“I didn’t just feel very comfortable with it. This year I really want to embrace that. You look at so many people and when they have got a home advantage, it is an advantage, and it should be for not just me but for the guys from here as well. It’s something that you really have to embrace, and that’s what I’m going to try and do this week.”

And after a pretty miserable time on the course of late, what better way to break into some good form than by returning to Royal Portrush to find your game?

“I’ve put 10 days of really good work in,” McIlroy said. “My game feels good. It actually felt pretty good at the US Open... like it was starting to come around. But my game feels in good shape. In a way it couldn’t be a better time to come back here and play Portrush. It brings back so many good memories, and you can feed off that, and that gives you some confidence.”

There will be others with just the same confidence and in terms of belief, this tournament is wide open, aren’t they all?

Defending champion Simon Dyson is also in bullish mood and clearly loves his links golf following a tied-ninth Open finish behind Clarke while Scotland’s Paul Lawrie’s credentials as 1999 Open champion have been rekindled this season by some sparkling form.

Clarke is looking to break out of a bigger slump than McIlroy as he attempts to rediscover form on the linksland he believes got him in shape to win last year at Royal St George’s while McDowell is playing in his hometown a fortnight after going so close to regaining the US Open title.

Harrington, too, went close at the Olympic Club and a return to links golf on a course he has clocked up more than 60 rounds on may just come at the right time after two major top-10 finishes already this year.

Harrington, Clarke, McDowell and McIlroy; Dunbar, Cutler and Hoey. It’s not a bad home line-up.

The Northern Ireland Tourist Board has a slogan “Champion Courses Make Champion Golfers” and this week’s Irish Open presents the ideal opportunity to prove it.