Rory McIlroy's golf will be immense, but his emotional journey at The Open will be far more compelling

McIlroy enters the 2024 Open Championship still seeking his first major in a decade, this time coming off another crushing close call

Watching the best golfers in the world play golf is normally interesting on its own. Watching the best golfers in the world think and attempt to control their emotions is one of the most fascinating things in all of sports. 2023 T6 3.15 2022 3 3.93 2021 T46 0.73 2019 MC 0.19 2018 T2 3.07 2017 T4 2.80 2016 T5 3.38 2014 Won 4.90 2013 MC -1.99 2012 T60 0.32 2011 T25 1.76

Anybody can get on YouTube and pull up clips of great golf. Much of it looks the same, even if it's not. One can easily find a random clip of a halfway-decent amateur golfer hitting a drive and pull up another of Jon Rahm hitting a drive next to that person. The trajectories, ball speeds and general direction of the shot -- all of it will look similar. It would take a launch monitor display to understand that it not.

The point is that watching world-class golfers hit golf balls can begin to feel uniform. What never gets tiresome, though, is experiencing the arc of human emotion: the triumph and the tragedy.