Will ye no come back again? It was a question pondered by the locals of Carnoustie all those years ago after the great Ben Hogan had wooed this particular parish with his Open triumph in 1953.

“I don’t know when I’ll be back,” Hogan said at the prize-giving. “But I’ll try to make it next year.”

He never did return, either to Scotland or the Open and his success here 65 years ago would be become woven into the fabric of Carnoustie in a golfing tapestry of legend and myth, fact and fiction.

For Rory McIlroy, meanwhile, it’s not a case will ye no come back again. More a feeling of, I wish I could go back there again. McIlroy can do many things, but he can’t turn back time.

In 2007, a slightly chubby teenager destined to be a superstar won the silver medal here as the leading amateur at the Open.

With that vast, curly mop of hair that just about had the topiary experts at the Royal Horticultural Society sharpening their shears in anticipation of clipping it into a decorative bush, a youthful McIlroy was in his element.

“I probably could grow it back but I don’t want to,” he said with a reflective chortle. “When I looked in the mirror back then, I didn’t think it was as big as it was. There are a few more greys in it these days.”

Trying to win majors can do that to you.

“The pressure that’s put on the top guys to perform at such a high level starts to weigh on you a little bit,” added McIlroy, who won the third of his four major titles in the Open of 2014. “When I last played the Open here [in 2007], I was bouncing down the fairways and I didn’t care if I shot 82 or 62. I look back at those pictures and the more I can be like that kid, the better.”

At 29, McIlroy is hardly a wizened veteran but a pairing with the 23-year-old Spaniard, Jon Rahm, recently had him pining for more youthful days.

With three top-fives in his last four starts and plenty of artistry and swashbuckling adventure, Rahm is a major contender this week.

“As you get older, you get a bit cautious and it was nice playing with Jon because his first instinct is to pull the driver out and not think about trouble,” said McIlroy.

Playing with a carefree abandon is all well and good but the nature of the firm, fiery test this week will require patience, mental fortitude, invention, plenty of feel and a good dollop of luck.

While the greens are, well, green and pretty receptive, the yellowy, brown fairways at the 147th Open are generating so much run, a tee-shot could easily roll into the 148th championship.

If it was dubbed ‘Car-nasty’ in 1999, then ‘Car-fasty’ may have to do for 2018. The going is so baked out, the R&A might get Mary Berry to have a prod at it.

There’s a little bit of rain in the forecast but nothing that’s going to deliver a good drooking. To soften up the rock hard terrain here, you’d require Poseidon to whip up a tsunami in the North Sea. And as for some of the tight lies? They just about come with the sound of their own wince.

“I don’t think there will be one player in the field who has a game plan on Wednesday night and will stick to that game plan the whole way round for 72-holes, it’s just not going to happen,” suggested McIlroy.

It could be a week for starting off with a plan A, perhaps adopting a plan B and keeping a plan C or D tucked inside the stroke saver just in case. But the best laid plans can easily go to pot in this game.

“I think where you really can get in trouble is just pressing out here,” observed a cautious Justin Thomas.

“I’m probably going to hit a lot of irons out here. If I get two, three-over-par early on the front nine, you can potentially try to change your game plan and start hitting drivers. But then you start hitting them into bunkers or gorse bushes. And you start making more bogeys and double bogeys and the next thing you know, you turn a one- or two-over into five or six-over.”

There’s plenty to ponder and in Open week, those ponderings reach fever pitch as all and sundry embark on that great fool’s errand; predictions.

In the links game, with all its vagaries, such a task becomes even more bamboozling. Brandon Stone, for instance, was a 1000 to 1 outsider heading into the Scottish Open at Gullane last week but spilled just three shots in 72-holes, went bogey free for the last two rounds and closed with a sizzling 60 to win. The sheer strength in depth of the modern game merely adds to the unpredictability.

“The fields have become so much deeper,” said McIlroy. “This week, there are 156 guys and probably over half of them have a realistic chance of winning the tournament.”

Gary Player, the Carnoustie champion 50 years ago, took that theme a tad further.

“It’s impossible and with the way the course is set up and the conditions, anybody who plays in this tournament could win,” said the sprightly South African, who won nine major titles in his pomp. “We did a little survey and seven people gave seven different answers. If you had that when Tiger was at his best, it would be unanimous that Tiger would win. But now I don’t know [who will win].”

After winning the Claret Jug in 2014, McIlroy’s defence the following year was booted into touch after he injured himself playing football.

In his last two Opens, though, he has finished tied fifth and tied fourth. In 2018, his form has often been as hard to fathom as the Carnoustie links this week.

We can only wait to see which Rory turns up but, as many will testify, McIlroy tends to be at his most dangerous when he’s been relatively quiet.

The runners and riders are bountiful and varied. Golf’s 20-somethings may have won the last five majors but the Open still remains the domain of the experienced campaigner. In the past decade, seven of the 10 championships have been won by players aged 35 or over.

Hogan’s triumph in 1953, just four years after the car crash which nearly killed him, was part of a watershed season.

Many have suggested that a Woods win in 2018, from the mangled wreckage of his physical and professional tumult, would be equally as absorbing.

Whatever transpires in the Tiger tale, there will be a few twists in the tale of this Open too.