Rory McIlroy has produced many moments over the years that have raised the heart rates of golfing fans but what gets the Northern Irishman's blood pumping - high octane or high drama?
In a year where he has completed the career Grand Slam, won his home open and THE PLAYERS Championship in play-offs and been part of an away Ryder Cup win, McIlroy has not been short of sporting thrills.
But ahead of the 20th edition of the Abu Dhabi HSBC Championship at Yas Links, we tried to see if we could give him the biggest thrill of all at Yas Marina Circuit just across the road.
Turns out that trying to scare a winner of six Harry Vardon Trophies, five Major Championships and four Rolex Series events is harder than you might think.
McIlroy's day-to-day heart rate is around 50 beats per minute (bpm) and using his WHOOP to measure, we put him in a sports car with Francesca Pardini, a former professional racing driver with Ferrari.
After a warm-up lap to acclimatise, Pardini reached speeds of up to 245km/h, incresing McIlroy's heart rate to 103bpm, all relatively serene considering her previous non-superstar passenger had reached the heights of 145bpm.
His stress levels did get high, however, peaking at 2.6 and averaging 2.2 out of 3.
"You would like to think your heart rate is not going to get too high as a professional athlete," said McIlroy. "I got out of the car and I was buzzing."
But that is not to say the 36-year-old is immune to pressure at the highest level, with his play-off victory over JJ Spaun at THE PLAYERS seeing him get up to 124bpm when stood on the 17th tee at TPC Sawgrass' famously daunting island-green 17th.
It perhaps says even more about him, however, that his heart rate reached a high of 151bpm after he had holed the winning putt at the 2021 Wells Fargo Championship.
It appears that the thing that truly gets McIlroy's blood pumping is winning - and he has certainly done plenty of that.
