At the Open Championship at Carnoustie, Rory McIlroy walked like he knew the way, and surrounded by history, tradition and a blue-chip field which included arguably the greatest player to have ever played the game, it also looked like he belonged.

Watch Brian O'Driscoll and you might notice that he's one of the few rugby players on the planet who can appear totally relaxed when a game is at its most intense. When several top players were struggling to control their breathing at Carnoustie, McIlroy frequently gave the impression that he was in the middle of a practice round.

On the course, he looked the part, and perhaps more importantly, he looked the part off it as well. Cocky in a refreshingly inoffensive way, he walked and he talked with a rare conviction. With Rory McIlroy, it's mostly a DNA thing. Putting it in its most simple format, he has it.

Hard graft is a major part of where he is now and where he will eventually get to, but there are players who hit countless thousands of balls who will never have it. What could ultimately make McIlroy different from any other Irish player is indefinable, but what is certain is that he strolled into the Open Championship as a cherubic, hotshot amateur with a bit of game, and strolled out a star in the making.

Pitched into the first two rounds of his first major, he matched Henrik Stenson for power and Miguel Angel Jimenez for shot-making. His 68 on the opening day was bogey free, a feat no other player managed. On the stage, in that company, he was unbelievably comfortable.

The danger here is that in a few years time we could be telling tales about the wunderkind from Holywood in county Down who never fulfilled that rich promise, who somehow lost his way in a whirl of fast money, fast cars and missed cuts. But when McIlroy turns pro later this month, he doesn't see himself as plunging in at the deep end. There's a sense now that he has already tested the waters.

"I'd like to think that the way I played at the Open means I have the game to succeed in the pro ranks, " he says. "I played really well the first day, but I didn't play my best in the other three rounds, so finishing 42nd wasn't too bad for my first major. I know golf can throw a lot of funny things at you, but if I keep practising and I keep my head screwed on, I don't think it's possible that it could all go wrong.

"I suppose you can look at Justin Rose and what happened to him, but I think I've got enough natural ability not to lose my game. I can shoot a bad round, but I'm not going to go 21 weeks without making a cut. The more experience I get, the more majors I get into, I don't see any reason why I can't be one of the top players in the world in the next five years."

All his precocious achievements, his silverware and his records might not have suddenly resonated the way they do if he had blinked at Carnoustie. Even at a few months past his 18th birthday with an undergraduate game, failure to make an impression might have raised a few questions about his self-professed pedigree. But as Padraig Harrington fulfilled his promise, McIlroy provided evidence that he could soon be next in line.

"The most important lesson from the Open was the way that I held my rounds together on the Friday and the Saturday when I wasn't playing that well. I made three really good up-anddowns for pars at the last three holes on Saturday.

Okay, I birdied the 18th on the last day and that was great, but my best shot of the week was probably a bunker shot at the eighth in the second round. It kept my score going."

Hardly the delusions of a flash kid. "He looks like a 14year-old, " said the US Ryder Cup player, Scott Verplank, who was paired with McIlroy in the final round at Carnoustie. "But he plays like a man of 28."

Since then, he was part of Ireland's victory at the European Team Championship at Western Gailes in Scotland, and next weekend he realises a personal goal when he represents Great Britain and Ireland in the Walker Cup matches against America at Royal County Down.

He missed out two years ago when the team lost narrowly in Chicago, a result which prompted Peter McEvoy, the chairman of selectors, to admit that he "bottled out" by not picking McIlroy. "I didn't deserve it at the time to be honest, " he says, "and maybe Peter McEvoy said he made a mistake because they lost but, from my perspective, it did me no harm at all. It made me work even harder."

Today he, the other Irish representative, Jonathan Caldwell from Clandeboye, and the rest of the team will have dinner in the R&A clubhouse at St Andrews before playing Kingsbarns tomorrow and then flying by private jet to Belfast.

If this week's practice sessions go to plan, he is likely to be playing alongside Caldwell in the foursomes next Saturday morning. "There'll be some pressure as I really want to beat the Americans on home soil in front of family and friends, but it should be okay as I'll have Johnny Caldwell to share it with. I think we've only lost one match together for Ireland over the past two years, and it'll be good to stand on the first tee with him by my side. Still, I'll probably be more nervous than at Carnoustie because you're playing for other people this time."

McIlroy injured his back when playing out of the rough during practice for the Rosapenna Scratch Cup three weeks ago, and there was a rumour that he might even be a doubt for the matches. "If I hit 100 balls on the range, then I'll start to feel it a bit, but I can't feel it on the course. I shot 65 around Hollywood last weekend, so I'm not a doubt or anything like that."

Although he plans to play the first stage of the European Tour's qualifying school at the Oxfordshire outside of London a couple of days following the Walker Cup, the matches against the Americans will be his last significant act as an amateur before he turns pro later in the month. "I'd love to go out of the amateur game on a high, and to beat the Americans at home would be the best way to say goodbye."

And to say hello to a new world he looks born to succeed in.

DAYS OF WALKOVERS AT WALKER CUP ARE LONG GONE

The almost total dominance of America in the biennial Walker Cup matches didn't lead to a call for the opposition to be expanded from a combined Britain and Ireland team to Europe as had been the way of the Ryder Cup, the call was more to do with whether the matches were worth persisting with at all.

Since the inaugural joust back in 1922, victory for the leading amateurs from these shores was so rare that the legendary Joe Carr competed in the event 10 times as a player, and once as a non-playing captain, without ever being on the winning side.

The first home win came at St Andrews in 1938 with Cecil Ewing and Jimmy Bruen, but there was a long wait until 1971 for the next.

The shift in fortunes is generally regarded to have occurred in Atlanta in 1989 when Britain and Ireland, with Garth McGimpsey and Eoghan O'Connell, won in America for the first time.

Since 1995 when Padraig Harrington and Jody Fanagan got the better of Tiger Woods at Royal Porthcawl, Britain and Ireland have won four of the six matches, and only lost by a point two years ago in Chicago.

That 2005 defeat will be an added incentive for Rhys Davies, Nigel Edwards and Lloyd Saltman who line up once again when the matches get under way at Royal County Down on Saturday.

While the outcome is not as easy to predict as in the Joe Carr era, the home team will look to Davies, who won 10 collegiate events during his time at East Tennessee, Rory McIlroy, his Ireland team partner, Jonathan Caldwell, and to the experience of Saltman and Edwards.

America, meanwhile, have the world's number-one amateur in Colt Knost, who won the double of the US Amateur and the US Public Links this summer, and the experienced Trip Kuehne (right) in their ranks.

GB&I Jonathan Caldwell (Clandeboye), Rhys Davies (Wal), Nigel Edwards (Wal), David Horsey (Eng), Llewellyn Matthews (Wal), Rory McIlroy (Holywood), Jamie Moul (Eng), John Parry (Eng), Lloyd Saltman (Sco), Daniel Willett (Eng) Non-playing captain Colin Dalgleish (Sco) USA Billy Horschel, Rickie Fowler, Dustin Johnson, Chris Kirk, Colt Knost, Trip Kuehne, Jamie Lovemark, Jonathan Moore, Webb Simpson, Kyle Stanley Nonplaying captain George 'Buddy' Marucci WALKER CUP MATCHES Royal Co Down Saturday morning Four foursomes Saturday afternoon Eight singles Sunday morning Four foursomes Sunday afternoon Eight singles