There's two very different ways to view Rory McIlroy's performance at the 146th Open Championship. McIlroy entered the week at Royal Birkdale after missing the cut at both the Irish Open (where he is a host) and Scottish Open, and combined with a missed cut at the U.S. Open earlier this year, the 2017 season was short on successes and filled with questions from critics and fans.

In 2014, you couldn't imagine anyone shaking Rory's grip on the game of golf. Three years, later he's sharing the spotlight with a handful of other young talents. 

Then on Thursday, Rory bogeyed five of his first six holes before a turnaround -- of his tournament and potentially his season -- began. McIlroy finished with a four-birdie, bogey-free 32 on the back side to shoot 71 and then backed that up with 68 on Friday, 69 on Saturday and 67 on Sunday. It was a strong enough performance to finish T4, his 16th top-10 finish in a major championship in the last nine years. 

One takeaway is that McIlroy seems healthy and putted well enough in spurts to challenge for the the title at the PGA Championship and contend to finish the career Gland Slam next year at Augusta.  The other takeaway, held by McIlroy himself, is that this week was "a lost opportunity." 

"It's a lost opportunity. I felt like I had a chance to get in a few shots better than I did yesterday, and I didn't," McIlroy told reporters after the round. "That would have put me a bit closer to the lead going out today and maybe I would have been able to put a bit of pressure on the guys in front of me.

"I was within four [of the lead] at one point, playing 13 or 14, and I thought with the two par fives coming up I had the chance to post a number and at least scare them a little bit."

McIlroy did have missed opportunities on Saturday, but a better start on Thursday would have him as many as five strokes better. His putter helped him climb up the leaderboard, but he wasn't hitting enough greens through the week to cash in with birdies. You start to add up the strokes through the week, and it's not hard to imagine a slightly different outcome that has McIlroy, not Matt Kuchar, battling Jordan Spieth for the championship on Sunday. 

But after three straight rounds in the 60s, McIlroy himself even admitted it was a "step in the right direction." 

"Looking at what happened in the last few weeks, this is a lot better," he said. 

There's an anxiousness building for McIlroy's fifth major win every time we get further and further from his last, the 2014 PGA Championship. Given his solid and improved performance at Royal Birkdale, he should be the favorite to win next month at Quail Hollow, given his success there at the Wells Fargo. McIlroy is a two-time winner on that course and holds the course record after dropping a 61 there in 2015 on the way to a seven-stroke victory. 

But even with the recent struggles, the disappointing quotes from McIlroy reveal that the improved play and better finish this week at Royal Birkdale isn't enough to satisfy the four-time major champion. When he's playing good golf, anything but a win is a lost opportunity.