There are only two events left on the PGA Tour's fall schedule before we get a break for Thanksgiving and then move on to Tiger Woods' return at the Hero World Challenge in December.

This week's tournament is the OHL Classic at Mayakoba and next week's is the RSM Classic. Both will be low-key affairs as most of golf's stars have either already wrapped their plans up for the year or are currently winding down with the Tournament of Champions looming on the horizon in January.

It has been a quiet fall so far save for all the craziness with Woods' injuries and starts and stops with his return. He bailed out of the Safeway Open and the Turkish Airlines Open and is supposedly going to be back for his own tournament in the Bahamas in a few weeks. Other than that, not a lot has happened.

But that doesn't mean we haven't learned anything. From Napa to China to Las Vegas, here are five things we have learned this fall during the still-new 2016-17 PGA Tour season.

1. Hideki Matsuyama is on the verge: WGC wins are always meaningful, but Matsuyama's win at the HSBC Champions in China had some extra juice because he is so young (24) and has won so many times before (Memorial Tournament, Phoenix Open and all over the world). He said it after his win over Henrik Stenson and Rory McIlroy in Shanghai, and I believe him. "Winning today, I feel has got me closer to being able to compete a lot better in the major tournaments," said Matsuyama. "So my next goal is, of course, to win a major, and I'm going to do all that I can to prepare well for that."

If he putts like he did in China, that will happen sooner rather than later.

2. Tiger Woods can win again: Consider the logic here. A 47-year-old Australian who has bounced around on the Web.com Tour for the past few seasons and hadn't won on the PGA Tour in a decade just won the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open. And he wasn't even supposed to be in the tournament!

This is golf, and golf has proven itself over and over again to be the strangest profession when it comes to who wins tournaments. Chris Solomon of No Laying Up is correct. If Rod Pampling can win a real tournament at close to 50, Woods can certainly win again.


3. Tiger Woods cannot win a major again: We sure have learned a lot about Tiger without watching him play, haven't we? This has less to do with how good Woods is or will be and more to do with what happened at the WGC in China. Did you see how the cream rose to the top there? Here was your final top five:

  • No. 7 player in world (Hideki Matsuyama)
  • No. 4 player in world (Henrik Stenson)
  • No. 28 player in world (Daniel Berger)
  • No. 2 player in world (Rory McIlroy)
  • No. 38 player in world (Bill Haas)

The big-boy events have a way of sorting themselves out among the very best golfers on the planet, and Woods is not one of the very best golfers on the planet anymore. He might not even be a top 50 golfer anymore even when healthy. Who knows.

Either way, I don't believe Woods can stave off the absurd group of 10-15 elite golfers that play all the major championships to snag his 15th career major championship.

So the question will be whether Woods will play the low-level tournaments he has a chance of winning. If the answer to that question is "yes," then we could see him raising trophies again. If not, I'm not sure he ever wins another golf tournament.

4. Brooks Koepka and Justin Thomas are American stars: I'm not totally sure what the future of United States golf looks like, but I'm almost positive these two studs are going to factor in. Thomas finished top 10 at the Safeway Open before winning in Malaysia. Koepka nearly won the Shriners Hospitals for Children Open last weekend. They are both in the top six in strokes gained so far this season. They have done exactly what you would expect a couple of stars who are trying to make the leap up to do: contended for and win tournaments that did not include elite fields.

When asked after his near-win in Las Vegas what is next for Koepka, he gave an answer I would expect from someone who sees himself as the future. "We got a week off next week, and we're going to Japan for Dunlop Phoenix and then Tiger's event," said Koepka. "So looking forward maybe to put a win on the board."

No longer are the young Americans satisfied with top 10s and good showings. They want to win, and they want to win right now. Which is exactly what they're doing.

5. The PGA Tour needs a fall shake-up: We say it every year, but it is silly for the PGA Tour to continue going up against football. The best rating the Shirners Hospitals for Children Open got last week was still worse than some fantasy football shows. This is the unintended consequence of offering FedEx Cup points in the fall. You tell your golfers tournaments are more important but they still look like they don't matter to the rest of the world.

The flip side of this is that you will always catch the hardcore golf fan (like myself). There are thousands of people who will always choose golf over football if both are on TV. But you're making it hard on yourself. Why not end tournaments on a Tuesday or a Friday or something different so that you're not trying to take on the NFL and college football?

Otherwise, as more and more content revolving around football becomes available for viewing, those ratings are likely to plummet.