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You almost always know what kind of day Rory McIlroy is going to have based on how he plays the first few holes of a round. On Thursday, he bogeyed No. 1 and it went sideways in a hurry. He hung on, though, and ended up salvaging a 71. On Friday, McIlroy blistered a 372-yard 3-wood off the first tee, and it was off to the races from there.

McIlroy birdied three of his first six holes (and missed two other mid-range birdie putts) to go out in 31 and get to 2 under, within three of the first round leaders who had yet to tee off. 

"It was tough," McIlroy told Jimmy Roberts of Golf Channel. "Some of the pins are on the right side of the greens for the way the wind is. It gives you some chances. 

"I think the back nine is going to play really tough. The front nine ... you don't have to do an awful lot spectacularly to get out in around even par. When you turn for home, that's when it gets really difficult. To only shoot 1-over on that side, that was good."

McIlroy came home in 37 as the weather threw a bit of afternoon foreshadowing the field's way but his 68 was second-best at the time he finished on what will be a testy day at Royal Birkdale. McIlroy is now at 1-under 139 for the tournament overall, three back of 36-hole clubhouse leader Matt Kuchar.

What was most impressive about the round though was not the show McIlroy put on over his first nine holes. Power fades that would make Elon Musk jealous and driver trajectories straight out of a video game, that's the status quo for the four-time major winner. 

What resonated, however, were the long par-saving putts McIlroy sank on the flip side. He poured two of them in early on the back. 

McIlroy grinding to get his ass involved in a major championship Jordan Spieth is already wrapping his fingers around? It might not be majestic in the same way McIlroy's greatest weeks have been, but it's the stuff that fills up record books and empties Claret Jugs.

And McIlroy may have escaped the thick stuff just in time. He closed as the wind really started to pound with rain apparently on the way. McIlroy stood over his tee shot on No. 18 for what felt like minutes trying to unmask Mother Nature.

"It's very hard to trust that the wind is going to affect the ball as much as it is," McIlroy told Golf Channel. "We don't play in winds this strong very often. When we do, you have to adjust very quickly and today I did."

After starting 5 over thru four holes on Thursday, McIlroy played his next 31 in 6 under to get himself in a legitimate conversation for this third major championship of 2017. The scoring average at the time he finished was 75, seven shots worse than McIlroy played, and it will only balloon from there. There's a good chance that McIlroy, who sat T11 at the end of his round, will be inside the top five by tonight.

He provided a little giddy-up to an event looking for a bump before Spieth and Brooks Koepka go fight wind and rain with 14 metal sticks this afternoon.

Whether you're at the tournament or viewing from home, watching Open Championship golf is a wildly different experience than what we usually get from week to week on the PGA Tour. Part of that for those of us here in the United States is that much of it unfolds at obscene times of the day when we should be sleeping rather than consuming 1-irons and lag putts.

But McIlroy juiced the middle of the night and served as caffeine for those still groggy from a night of debating whether Richard Bland really has the goods to hang around on the weekend.

When he enters that space so few in golf can occupy, you can almost feel the electricity inserted into the tournament. When he's picking up tees before his drive lands and winking at caddie J.P. Fitzgerald after held-off approach shots, you know something special is unfolding. And it did on that front-nine 31. The golf world stirred, and you can bet Spieth had a peek while getting ready for his round.

But this is also not how McIlroy wins majors. He's a frontrunner -- one of the great ones in golf history. He bludgeons fields on Thursdays and Fridays and gallops to trophy ceremonies. It can be breathtaking. This Open, if he wants to win it, will be different. 

He entered the heart of the tournament with his best stuff on Friday and then he stayed there with his toughest. That's how it will have to go at Royal Birkdale. McIlroy grinded in a way I can't remember seeing him grind on the back to get home safely with that 68. 

"It was really tough out there. I hit some real quality shots," McIlroy told reporters. "That was right up there with my best Open rounds."

It was everything we've seen in the past from McIlroy and more of what we've wanted throught his career. The generationally-talented McIlroy gutting out long pars and getting up and down from all over the yard? That's truly terrifying for the rest of the field.

So now McIlroy will wait and hope the weather howls on Friday to push him up the leaderboard. It's not a position many expected him to be in after Thursday's start, and maybe a little credit should go to Fitzgerald.

After that egregious opening stretch on Thursday, Fitzgerald told McIlroy, "You're Rory McIlroy, what the f--- are you doing?" 

McIlroy spent the next 24 hours answering his looper with his sticks. Now he's given himself a chance to deliver an audible response on Sunday afternoon as he walks up 18: I'm winning my fifth f---ing major.