What next for Russell Knox? Who has the advantage in the Race to Dubai? We answer five of the key talking points from the weekend's WGC-HSBC Champions in Shanghai.
Hoping for Hazeltine
The bad news for Russell Knox is that he could already have been almost halfway towards securing his place on next year's Ryder Cup team.
The good news is that the Florida-based Scot is now firmly on the radar of European captain Darren Clarke following his breakthrough victory in the HSBC Champions in Shanghai on Sunday.
Knox was initially seventh reserve for the event and only found out he would be making his WGC debut at Sheshan International a few days before, but the 30-year-old took victory and the first prize of £900,000.
That would have taken him top of the Ryder Cup qualifying race with 1,264,451 points if he had been a member of the European Tour. For reference, Jamie Donaldson needed 2,676,347 points to qualify in 2014.
"It's going to be a goal of mine to make the European Ryder Cup team and this obviously springboards me to a place where.... I mean yesterday I was nowhere near," Knox said on Sunday.
"I have no idea where I stand for making the team or what I need to do. But I look forward to finding out and giving it a run, that's for sure."
Knox has until the final day of the DP World Tour Championship in Dubai next week to join the tour for next season, but he cannot retroactively claim the points from Shanghai.
The race hots up
While Knox rightly took the headlines with his two-shot win in Shanghai, one noticeable theme coming out of the week was how tight things are looking at the top of the Race to Dubai's Order of Merit.
McIlroy still clings on to top spot in the standings, but the world No 3 had his lead cut to less than 100,000 points with Danny Willett's latest top-three finish. The chasing pack has closed the gap, with Willett now one of five players less than a million points away from McIlroy.
With the Northern Irishman the only player currently in the top 15 in the Race to Dubai standings not featuring in this week's BMW Masters and more than a million points up for grabs for the winners of the final two events, expect plenty more twists and turns during the final two weeks of the season.
Steady in Sheffield
Although neither ended up in the winner's circle this week, Danny Willett and Matt Fitzpatrick once again proved why they're two of a growing pool of British talent.
Willett's round-of-the-week 62 on Sunday significantly boosted his pay packet for the week and also helped him to a new career high in the world rankings, while Fitzpatrick maintained his position as one of the Tour's most consistent performers.
The man that Rob Lee referred to as 'a human ATM machine' continues to deliver impressive displays wherever he goes, with this week's tied-seventh finish in Shanghai moving Fitzpatrick ever closer to breaking in to the world's top 50.
With more top-10s than any other player on the European Tour this season, Fitzpatrick has secured his progress to the season-finale in Dubai and continues to move up the Race to Dubai standings. Impressive.
When your luck's out...
It was another week where Dustin Johnson will look back and wonder what might have been, after missing out on adding a second WGC title of the year.
The 2013 champion has had several well-documented near-misses in majors and big events in the past, but his latest came after a huge piece of misfortune on the final day.
Johnson had once again got himself in contention heading in to a final round and had started brightly with three birdies in his first seven holes, only to lose ground with a double-bogey at the next after getting the worst possible break.
DJ would go on to finish in a tie for fifth, but click on the video above to see how unlucky Johnson was for yourself.
Bernhard still dreams big
Bernhard Langer's phenomenal record in seniors golf continued at the weekend when he won the Charles Schwab Cup points title for the second straight year and third time overall.
The 58-year-old German also won the Champions Tour money title for a fourth year in succession - a record seventh time in eight seasons - and is confident of yet more success, despite the ban on anchored putting strokes which comes into effect in January.
Langer is a long-time proponent of the broomstick putter, but told reporters he is not worried about having to change his style of putting.
"My first thought is I'll probably go back to what I did before I went to the long putter, which was what [Matt] Kuchar does, holding the putter against the left forearm, and Soren Kjeldsen does the same thing," the former Ryder Cup captain said.
"I putted that way for seven years and I won a number of tournaments including the Masters, and if you can putt on the Masters greens and win with a grip like that, I would think I could do it in other tournaments, but we'll see. There's other options."