Fresh from delivering four points out of four for Great Britain & Ireland in the Vivendi Trophy in Paris, he arrives in Scotland this week for the Alfred Dunhill Links Championship with a much more improbable record.

The worst he has scored in both his amateur and professional lives over the most famous links in the world, the Old Course at St Andrews that will host next year’s Open Championship, is 69, three under par.

“I’ve played it probably between 15 and 20 times and I find it easy,” he said after closing last year with a 67. “I can make birdies round here and I feel very comfortable. Roll on 2010. Winning the Open is a huge goal of mine and I always said that if I was to play in the Open here I would do well.”

That was big talk for such a young man, but St Andrews is fast becoming a home from home for the tousle-haired 20-year-old from Holywood in Northern Ireland. It was here two years ago that he finished third in the Dunhill just a few months into his professional career, a result that propelled him on to the European Tour without the need to face the qualifying school ordeal.

The tournament, of course, is not played exclusively at St Andrews. Players in the pro-am event tackle Carnoustie and Kingsbarns as well, before the leading 60 out of 168 professionals play a final round over the Old Course.

McIlroy has good history, too, at Carnoustie, where he won the silver medal for leading amateur in the 2007 Open Championship. He was derailed last year at Kingsbarns, where he had a 78 in the worst of the weather that week and if he can generate a feelgood factor for that layout you have to fancy the world No.24 to contend again this year.

The Manchester United supporter was eighth last year in partnership with one of his heroes, Sir Bobby Charlton, and his short but illustrious history in this tournament must act as an inspiration to the Scottish trio of Callum Macaulay, Gavin Dear and Wallace Booth, all of whom are playing by invitation.

Dear and Booth, members of the GB&I team that lost to the US in the Walker Cup at Merion a fortnight ago, are making their professional debuts. Dear has fallen at the first qualifying school hurdle while Booth has made it through to the second stage, and they are well aware that this week is an opportunity to skip all that by playing like McIlroy did in similar circumstances two years ago.

The pair are reunited with their Eisenhower Trophy-winning team-mate of last year, Macaulay, who is in his rookie year on the European Tour and in need of a good performance to retain his playing rights, otherwise it will be back to school for him, too.

McIlroy, meanwhile, who was criticised earlier this year for viewing the Ryder Cup as no more than “an exhibition”, clearly thrived back in the team environment in Paris. Afterwards, Henrik Stenson, the top-ranked European whom he defeated in the closing singles, remarked that he would not mind partnering McIlroy in the Ryder Cup next year in Wales.

Paul McGinley, the GB&I captain, enhanced his credentials as a future Ryder Cup captain, and if Jose Maria Olazabal is, as expected, made captain for the 2012 match at Medinah, then McGinley is looking ever more the likely lad for Gleneagles in 2014.

THERE is a postscript to last week’s interview with Sally Little, the two-time major champion from Cape Town who was playing in Scotland for the first time after having been prevented from doing so in 1970 because of apartheid.

Reference was made to the long line of successful male golfers through Bobby Locke, Gary Player, Retief Goosen and Ernie Els, and Bill Mitchell of Glenbervie responds: “It is surprising that, given the context of your article, no mention is made of Sewsunker Papwa Sewgolum, perhaps one of the most gifted South African golfers who was unable to display his talents to the full because of the colour of his skin.

“His name is now almost totally forgotten, which is a real shame. Every obstacle was put in his way on the occasions he was allowed to play, but he did manage to achieve a great deal and this should not be overlooked.

“As a young boy I saw Papwa and another coloured South African, Eddie Johnson Sedbie, at Muirfield during practice for the Open in 1959 and became fascinated by them. By one of these strange quirks of fate it was, of course, Gary Player who won the Open that year.”

Sewgolum, who died in 1978 aged 48, was a former caddie who played cack-handed and won the Dutch Open three times and the Natal Open twice. On one of these occasions he was presented with the trophy outside in the rain because he was not allowed in the clubhouse.