Cast your mind back a couple of years ago and Hazeltine was shuddering and quaking amid a final day cacophony. Most of the racket was being kicked up by Rory McIlroy and Patrick Reed as the duo traded blows in a bombastic bout that generated so much electricity it nearly fused the National Grid.

While Reed was vigorously flapping around like a screaming Pterodactyl during a ding-dong singles encounter, McIlroy’s bottled up energy fully exploded with a putt of some 50-feet on the eighth as the Northern Irishman embarked on a vein-throbbing, eye-popping, lung-bursting celebration that had you fearing his actual skin would be blown off in the histrionic turbulence.

“I can’t hear you,” he bawled and gestured to the crowd like some Roman gladiator taunting the Emperor after slaughtering everything on the colosseum floor.

All of this, remember, had taken place on the front nine. The adrenaline was gushing in torrents and both McIlroy and Reed just about had to sign a contract with a lozenge supplier at the turn as they roared themselves hoarse.

McIlroy couldn’t maintain the high-octane assault, though. Reed eventually won by one hole and the USA were on their way to a first Ryder Cup win since 2008. Here in 2018, the events of Hazeltine still resonate. But they also educate.

Displaying all that fist-pumping vitality in golf’s most intense, all-consuming environment is one thing. Harnessing it is another. “I look back at those videos of that Ryder Cup and I was surprised I had a voice left at the end of week,” reflected McIlroy. “It actually looked tiring to have to play golf like that so I think I learned a lot from that week.

“I could play like that for nine holes but then it suddenly hit. It reached a crescendo on the eighth green and the level sort of declined after that. The last 10 holes were not as good. I learned that it’s good to get excited but at the same time, if I need to be called upon to play a late match on Sunday, I want to have all my energy in reserve so that I can give everything for 18 holes. I did hit a wall on that back nine on Sunday … and it cost me.”

McIlroy will be hoping Team Europe are not counting the cost come Sunday night as they try to wrest back that little gold chalice from American clutches.

At the age of just 29, this will be McIlroy’s fifth Ryder Cup appearance. When that particular statistic was put to him, the four-time major winner gave an audible and expressive puff of the cheeks as if to underline the passing of the years.

Some of the more seasoned golf writers, who have been covering this biennial battle since Henry Cotton was around, could empathise.

McIlroy comes into the contest having been left in the shadow of playing partner Tiger Woods during the final round of the Tour Championship in Atlanta last Sunday. Not for the first time this season, his killer instinct was brought into question as he slithered out of the running on a hugely disappointing day for McIlroy.

Asked bluntly if there was a sense of intimidation amid the resurgent Tiger tumult, McIlroy responded carefully. “That East Lake rough was really tough, that was the most intimidating thing about it,” said McIlroy with a wry grin as he reflected on a wayward round which often left him not being able to see the Woods for the trees. “I started hitting drives left and right early and I couldn’t really see what was happening too much.”

Keeping on the straight and narrow at Le Golf National will be imperative and deviations and detours will be punished. Focusing on the bigger picture, too, remains important.

“We’re not looking at individuals,” he said of the growing pandemonium surrounding Woods’s return to the Ryder Cup fray. “It’s great what he did on Sunday but to focus on one player would be silly. We are looking to beat the US team … we’re not looking to just beat Tiger Woods.”

The usual guessing games continue as tomorrow’s opening session looms. McIlroy has practised with the 23-year-old rookie, Jon Rahm, for the past two days as hints of a possible partnership heighten.

Rahm, an engaging, volatile, exuberant and hugely-talented player in that swashbuckling Spanish style, is so charged up he could joust about power all the laptops in the media centre. “I feel like I’m going to have electricity coming out of me,” he buzzed.

Pairings in the build-up are all well and good but the game plans can easily fly out of the window. In 2016, for instance, Europe lost the opening session 4-0 and a hasty re-jigging led to McIlroy going out with the Belgian rookie, Thomas Pieters.

“We didn’t actually play a practice round together and we were sort of thrown together at the last moment,” reflected McIlroy. It turned out pretty well. The off-the-cuff alliance went on to win three out of three.

Perhaps Rory and Rahm can conjure something similar? “I’d love to find a partner that goes as well,” he said. “Jon has the fire of Seve. To see how much he cares about the Ryder Cup and how proud he is to be European is really cool to see. I wasn’t quite as vocal in my first Ryder Cup as he’s been. But I wasn’t as good a player in my first Ryder Cup as he is.”

It may be Rahm who requires the lozenges by the end of this week?