Walking with his mates in Belfast or queuing for the cinema with girlfriend Holly, Rory McIlroy looks like any other 18-year-old. It is only when he climbs into his BMW to drive home that eyebrows might be raised.

It is on the golf course, though, that he really stands out – so much that the game’s shrewdest observers believe he is the most exciting prospect to emerge since Spain’s Sergio García and America’s Tiger Woods.