WHEN you’re a multi-millionaire golfing superstar, the various modes of transport you can take to whisk you hither and thither around the sporting parishes are bountiful. A private jet here, a chauffeur driven car there, a diamond-encrusted sedan chair everywhere?

In this money-soaked bubble, where whims can be pandered to in click-of-the-finger abandon, the idea of Rory McIlroy shoehorning his clubs and belongings into his car boot and hopping aboard the Belfast to Cairnryan ferry en route to this week’s Aberdeen Asset Management Scottish Open at Dundonald Links is as delightfully wholesome and charming as a painting of a horse drawn plough.

“It was quite funny because G Mac (Graeme McDowell) had texted me on Monday morning and I said I was just getting the ferry over to Cairnryan and he came back and said, ‘I didn’t know NetJets did ferries,” said McIlroy with a smile.

The Northern Irishman has always been a down-to-earth kind of fellow, though. “It’s nice to have the car and throw everything in the back,” he added cheerily.

“I'm driving down to Birkdale from here and then we (with his wife) are taking a bit of a road trip after the Open to the Cotswolds.

"This boat trip is one I’ve taken a lot. I remember my dad was part of a golfing society when I was like ten or 11. We got the boat from Belfast to Stranraer, played a golf course over there and then sailed back.

"My dad said to me, ‘do you want to go and play snooker?’. I said, "Yeah, let's go play," and he said ‘Rory, it’s a boat, the balls are going to move.” I make that joke every time I go on now. I say, 'do you want to go and play pool?'."

The hop across the water was probably more of an exercise in plain sailing than the 2017 campaign has been for McIlroy.

The injury which has disrupted his schedule, and led to him adding the Scottish Open to his diary, has not helped matters while his well-documented frustrations and woes with the putter have heightened the relentless scrutiny.

This will be McIlroy’s first appearance in a Scottish Open since he competed at Royal Aberdeen in 2014.

That particular trip to the Granite City paid dividends as his links tune up helped him win the following week’s Open in majestic fashion at Hoylake.

He took the ferry that week too and made the drive up north before heading to the Wirral. The 28-year-old is seeing similarities here this week. Perhaps those good omens are packed in the car boot?

“It’s bringing back good memories and I have good vibes,” added the world No 4 ahead of the test at Dundonald. “Funnily enough, I found something in my putting that week at Aberdeen. It was just a little thought, a little key that I brought, not just to Hoylake but to the rest of that summer and it worked well.

"You never know when you're going to stumble upon these little epiphanies or whatever they are called. It’s like a light bulb goes off in your head and you think, ‘that makes sense’.”

What McIlroy unearthed in that summer of 2014 was something quite magical. After his imperious march to the Claret Jug, he went on to win the WGC event at Firestone before capping a quite shimmering spell with another major moment in the PGA Championship.

Having been left feeling blue on the greens recently, McIlroy has gone back to a more fundamental approach to putting like the one he re-discovered three years ago. Indeed, he's travelled even further back in time.

“I was using a line on the ball, like I am now, but sometimes I was getting a little too focussed on the line and trying to line it up perfectly and I was getting too involved in that,” he explained.

“So I actually went away from the line the weekend of Aberdeen and just focussed on a little spot like two inches in front of the ball, and I just said to myself, ‘just roll it over that spot’.

"And that's all I did. I feel like I’ve become quite bogged down in technical thoughts a little bit. So I need to focus more on my routine and how I approach a putt.

"You look at a six year old kid. Give them a putter and a ball and tell them to hole a putt. It doesn’t look like there's any thought that goes into it, but they somehow are able to know that that ball is able to break a certain amount of distance and it goes in the hole. So it's about just trying to get back to that mentality."

McIlroy continues to state that an upturn in his fortunes is just round the corner. Now , he is eager to prove it.

“It’s close,” he insisted “It’s hard to sit up here and stand in front of a camera every single time and say to you guys: ‘It’s close,'.

"I sound a bit like a broken record after a few weeks. But really, it’s not far away.. I’m trying to stay patient but it’s proving difficult."