In a delicious twist, the return coincides with McIlroy ending his 11-year major drought by winning the Masters to complete the career Grand Slam. The Northern Irishman is here wearing the coveted Green Jacket.
No further hype needed. “Yeah, poor Rory, everyone seems to build up the pressure on him being the favourite,” Harrington said.
“But if you want to be at that level the pressure’s always going to be on you.
“Clearly, he knows Portrush very well, he’ll have the support and there’s no doubt we’d love to see an Irish winner.”
But Harrington says McIlroy should maintain some perspective for what could otherwise be an overwhelming week.
“Him going with the Masters’ jacket, I think it’s enough for him to just swan around and wave to the crowds,” said the three-time major winner.
“He doesn’t have to win. The people always want him to win the next major or whatever, but it doesn’t have to be this one.
“I know it would be nice to be Portrush, but he’ll win plenty more majors.”
Regardless of whether Portrush can serve up another domestic fairytale, this will remain a golden period for golf on the island of Ireland. How does Harrington think the sport’s historians will reflect on it in years to come?
“Clearly it’s been unprecedented,” he said. “There’s been a lot of ‘how did we do it?’ You know, I don’t know if you can replicate things like that.
“Everybody’s been trying to find the formula, did we have something special in Ireland? I’m not sure.
“We gained some momentum. We did our thing. I think it’s good for us going forward that we will have players who will believe in themselves.”
They will do so while speculation grows that new ground will be broken by the R&A taking a future Open to Portmarnock in the the Republic of Ireland.
It is another indicator of how far and how quickly golf in this part of the world has moved. “Definitely, that’s a big step,” Harrington said.
“It’s tried for a long time to lose the tag as the British Open; it’s The Open,” Harrington said.
“And it represents everybody, not just the people in Britain, but it represents everybody around the world who plays golf.
“It’s everybody’s Open.” But this week with a discernible Irish hue.