Rory McIlory gets acquainted with Chambers Bay golf course on Saturday ahead of next week’s US Open confident that some time away from the game will have done him a power of good.

The world number one won the Wells Fargo tournament in Charlotte in mid-May on the back of a superb 61 in the third round.

– #360VIEW: Woods needs to rediscover self-belief his father gave him
– Tiger Woods aims to regroup at US Open after Memorial debacle
– JOY OF GOLF: Chambers Bay will be a rough but ready course

But oddly he followed that up by returning to Europe and enduring back-to-back missed cuts at the BMW PGA Championship and at the Irish Open on home turf.

His antidote for those blips in his recent form was to take a break.

The reference to last year concerned McIlroy’s back-to-back major wins at the British Open and the PGA Championship, taking his haul of major titles to four at the age of 25 (he is now 26).

A win at Chambers Bay on June 21 would put him level with the likes of Seve Ballesteros, Phil Mickelson and Byron Nelson on the all-time list and would further fuel the debate over whether he can chase down the top two – Tiger Woods with 14 and Jack Nicklaus with 18.

McIlroy, however, refuses to get drawn into any predictions

More to the point, he insists, is how best to play Chambers Bay, south of Seattle which is hosting the US Open for the first time and is something of a mystery for most of the 156-strong field, McIlroy included.

After the US Open, McIlroy is playing two courses he knows well for majors, with the British Open headed to St. Andrews and the PGA at Whistling Straits.