There was a sense of foreboding around the first tee at Royal Portrush when Rory McIlroy loped out of the tunnel beneath the stands and emerged into the gloomy light of an Ulster summer’s day. Six years ago, when he had stepped on to this tee amid so much excitement about the return of the Open to Northern Ireland for the first time since 1951, his tournament had ended almost before it had begun. He hooked his tee shot out of bounds, found more trouble with his second tee shot and carded a quadruple bogey eight. He never quite recovered from the trauma of that horror opening and missed the cut the next day. McIlroy admitted earlier in the week that it would be impossible to banish the memory of that first shot when he addressed his ball and stared up the first fairway towards the grandstand perched above the green and the briars and bracken that cloak it. This time, he avoided disaster. He pulled his drive left again but not quite as far left as last time and the ball nestled in light rough at the edge of the fairway. ‘He is going to have to muscle it out of there,’ the man from the BBC whispered into his microphone. McIlroy did muscle it out. He missed a 5ft putt for par but a bogey felt like a bargain that the crowd, and even McIlroy, might have accepted before he teed off. McIlroy is the greatest golfer that Europe has ever produced. No one wanted to see him head home early again. But he still managed to put the huge galleries that followed him through the wringer. Much of his play, as always, was sublime but he did not do it the easy way. He never does. On the second, he pulled his drive left again and it came to rest in more light rough at the foot of a steep slope that obscured his view of the green. A mass of spectators gathered around the ball. A young child sat on his father’s shoulders so that he could see a golfing great get out of trouble. A marshal showed McIlroy to the spot where his ball had come to rest and McIlroy strode towards it, grim-faced. Three times, he climbed the hill to try to get his bearings and stared out at a series of grassy knolls receding into the distance, every one crowned with rows of spectators staring back at him. McIlroy’s recovery shot found more light rough but the magician in him still managed to turn that into a 15ft putt for birdie. As McIlroy stood over it, he could hear the hum of the traffic on the Bushmills Road. He rolled it in. He was back to level par. McIlroy’s driving continued to be erratic but for much of the rest of the back nine, he was a joy to watch, partly for his escapology, partly for his shot-making and partly for the thrill of seeing him play the most spectacular course on the Open roster. After he smoked his drive down the fifth and it came to rest near the edge of the green on the par four, he marched down the fairway towards the North Atlantic that looked like it began where the putting surface ended and addressed his chip under the forbidding gaze of the ruins of Dunluce Castle away to his right. McIlroy holed a tough 15ft putt for birdie there, bullying his ball up a steep slope and allowing it to curl into the cup. That moved him under par for the first time, and birdies on the seventh and the 10th moved him to three under and within a shot of the lead. The pace of play was glacial. It took McIlroy’s group two hours and 55 minutes to reach the turn. By the time they finished, the round had taken close to six hours. It was not confined to that group. In fact, it was uniform. But six-hour rounds do not feel sustainable when sports are fighting to retain the attention of their fans. After that birdie on the 10th, McIlroy’s game faltered. He was pulling almost every drive to the left and in the end it caught up with him. The wind began to pick up as he started on the back nine and he bogeyed the 11th, the 12th and the 14th. After one wayward approach shot, he could not contain his frustration and berated himself with some colourful language that the BBC felt the need to apologise for. That relegated McIlroy to the midfield but he still produced some scintillating golf. A chip to within a few feet on the par-three 16th rescued him from yet another wayward tee shot and he holed the putt for a par. On the 17th, he hooked another drive into deep rough but produced another brilliant recovery shot to hack the ball out, find the green and leave himself with a 12ft putt for birdie and to move back below par. McIlroy duly buried it. His talent is remarkable, and his talent toying with the emotions of his fans, bringing them down and lifting them up, just as he did in that breathtaking last round at the Masters in April, is remarkable, too. He only hit two fairways out of 14 yesterday, the lowest in his Open career and the second lowest of the day. At this stage six years ago, McIlroy was eight over and heading out of his home Open. This time, he is nine shots better off and three shots off the lead. Thursday was not a day of triumph but a day when McIlroy and his fans breathed a sigh of relief. No one knows what tomorrow will bring with McIlroy but for this first day of the Open, it was enough that he avoided calamity and kept alive the dream that he might yet be the homecoming hero that all of Northern Ireland craves.