RORY McILROY wanted to return to Royal Birkdale early in a bid to find the little bit of magic that can deliver his second Open triumph – and the 2014 champion thinks he may have found it.

McIlroy, a Claret Jug winner in this neck of the woods three years ago at Royal Liverpool, has not been in the best of form and missed the cut in his two appearances building up to the 146th Open.

His failings at the Irish Open and Scottish Open, two links competitions he was using as preparation to this week in Southport, meant he was keen to hit Birkdale on Monday to work on what was required with his swing coach Michael Bannon.

The four-time major winner wanted to get some extra practice in, knowing he has had a frustrating year which started with a rib injury and caused him to miss four tournaments. It flared up again in May, meaning he had to withdraw from the BMW PGA Championship at Wentworth and the Memorial Tournament in Ohio.

But he will tee off, with his long-term caddie JP Fitzgerald alongside him this afternoon, on the west coast with Charl Schwartzel and Dustin Johnson aiming to lay to rest some of the recent disappointments.

"I want to win this week, I don't need to win," said McIlroy. "A second Open Championship isn't going to change my life. But I want to win. I'm still as ambitious now as I was starting off my career, if not more so now because I know what I've achieved and I know what I can achieve. It only makes you want to do that even more.

"If someone told me (ten years ago) you're going to be a four-time major winner and you won The Open, and you're one leg away from the career Grand Slam, you've played on three winning Ryder Cup teams, you've won the Order of Merit three times in Europe, you've won the FedExCup in the States, I'd be, like, yeah, I'll take that! That's pretty good.

"But having that success, you only want to do that more. And you want to emulate that and you want to do it again and again and again. So I definitely haven't lost the hunger that I've always had.”

McIlroy, for so long the short odds favourite when a major came round, knows the bookmakers have listed Jordan Spieth, Rickie Fowler, Dustin Johnson, Jon Rahm and Sergio Garcia ahead of him as he sits on 20/1.

But he is determined to prove them all wrong by becoming the first player to win a major after missing consecutive cuts immediately beforehand since American Webb Simpson did by claiming the US Open in 2012. Louis Oosthuizen was the most recent to do so at The Open in 2010.

"It’s a good time to back me, I think," McIlroy said. "If I was a betting company and I saw my form over the past few weeks you would say, yeah, that's probably a fair enough price.

"But again, all it takes is one week for those odds to go back to, I don't know, 7/1, 8/1 at Quail Hollow (for next month's US PGA Championship). So as I say, it’s a good week to back me."

He added: “My game is all there. Again, it's just about staying as positive as I possibly can. I don't know if I'll find something this week, I'll be able to tell you better when I'm in the tournament and how I'm feeling out there. But I'm as positive as I can be, I guess, going it. And we'll see how that goes.”

Another of the contenders being fancied was American Brandt Snedeker, but he has had to withdraw because of injury so compatriot James Hahn has stepped in. Whoever is in the mix come Sunday is likely to be up against Jason Day.

The Australian, after his press conference at Royal Birkdale, was presented with an award from the R&A in recognition of the 41 weeks he spent at world number one in 2016.

He has since slipped to number six and has missed cuts on his last two starts, including the US Open. He admits it has been a difficult period for him on a personal level, too, with his mother receiving treatment for lung cancer earlier in the year.

Day, now hopeful of his chances of glory this week, said: "I feel like I got a little bit burned out the end of 2016 and take in a couple of injuries in that as well. The pressure of being number one was difficult as well. It got to me little bit.

“I had the scare with my mum at the start of the year. When you feel like you're going to lose someone that is very close to you, there's nothing you want to do more than just be with them and you don't even want to think about playing golf.

"Saying that, everything seems like it's kind of coming back into balance for me. I'm now able to focus on just really getting after it and working hard."