Northern Irish duo Rory McIlroy and Tom McKibbin eye strong finish to Irish Open at Royal County Down

The pair were partnered on the opening two days of the tournament as large crowds gathered to watch the pair try and navigate their way around the famous links of Royal County Down Golf Club.

Whilst the duo have practiced together, it marked the first time that they have teed it up beside each other on the competitive stage - much to McKibbin's delight.

He reflected: "Yeah, it was awesome. As you said, the first time competitively, I've been very lucky to play with him a lot sort of casually.

"But yeah, these last two days were pretty cool. I've been coming to this tournament since I was nine or ten years old and watching Rory and seeing those crowds, and then getting to play in them with him was pretty cool.

"It's probably definitely the highlight of my year so far.

“I've been watching this tournament for so long, and seeing these crowds, it's pretty cool to play in it."

McKibbin, who started round two at three-over par, would post a score of 69 to place himself on +1 for the tournament at the halfway stage.

"Obviously we got quite nice conditions there today. The course definitely played a lot easier but saying that, if you're still not on your game, the golf course is so hard. It really just can eat you up very quickly and it's very stressful,” he continued.

"I feel like if I can tidy up some things, some iron shots, and try to get a couple more under-par rounds, I'll be pretty happy."

The star of the show was ultimately three-time Major champion McIlroy who finds himself well in contention of securing the title on Sunday.

The 35-year-old carded a second round score of 70 to find himself on -4 and just one shot off the leaders.

"The conditions were quite benign for the first probably 11 or 12 holes. Felt like I could have done a little more to take advantage of them,” he said after completing 18 holes.

“But then you know, once the sun sort of went away, it got a little colder again and the wind picked up and then those last few holes are playing quite difficult. So sort of felt like I played pretty good on the way in. Dropped one shot but overall, another under-par round, pretty pleased with.

"I felt like even the crowds today were maybe a little bigger than they were yesterday and yeah, it was great. It's fun to play in an atmosphere like that. It was great to see Tom play well today, shoot a couple under and get himself into the weekend. I'm not too far out of it, either. Depending how the scores are this afternoon.

“So yeah, fun to play with Tom and see him play well and you know, I think we are both looking forward to a good weekend.”