Preview: Rory McIlroy primed as he returns to scene of past Open glory

Nine years ago to the day since Rory McIlroy kissed the Claret Jug in front of a bank of photographers on the 18th green at Hoylake, he will tee it up in the first round of the 151st Open on this unusually flat piece of linksland in affluent suburban Liverpool, searching for something he seemed to have in abundance that Sunday evening in 2014.

Major championship victories, some by big margins, became almost an annual occurrence for him in his early to mid 20's after US Open and USPGA triumphs, each by eight shots, over the previous three years.

But there were signs, even on that damp grey weekend, that such landslide successes were about to become more rarified.

The trophy engraver may well have started his preparatory work on the silverware after McIlroy birdied the first hole on Sunday, leaving him with seven shots to spare over the field.

But there followed a few front nine bogeys, while a run from behind by Sergio Garcia closed the gap to two strokes by the time McIlroy reached the back nine.

From there, it was a far more heavily gritted road to victory and it required a pluckily retrieved par-save on 17 to preserve that lead, which allowed him the luxury of enjoying the walk down 18.

It had been harder than he might have expected but in achieving a lifelong goal he had also made notable history beyond simply winning golf’s oldest and most historic title.

At 25, McIlroy had become the third youngest man to have claimed three of the world’s four majors.

He was beginning to be bracketed in the same pantheon of greats as the only other two players to have achieved that accolade, Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus.

That notion was only reinforced by the addition of a fourth major title to his trophy cabinet less than a month later at