Haas's Play Exceeds 'Expectations'


Bill Haas said after winning the Humana Challenge that his expectation level was low entering the tournament in California's Coachella Valley. But somehow, the 32-year-old North Carolina native and son of veteran touring pro Jay Haas cobbled together four rounds in the 60s and came out on top in the $5.7 million PGA Tour event.

Haas closed with a 5-under 67 to finish at 22-under 266, a stroke ahead of 2007 champion Charley Hoffman (64), Brendan Steele (64), Steve Wheatcroft (67) and Matt Kuchar (67), and South Korean Sung Joon Park (65).

"Honestly, if you would have told me I would have done this last week, I would have laughed at you," Haas told reporters after picking up the trophy and $1.026 million winner's check. "So, to be here is an unbelievable feeling. I cannot wait to call my wife and talk with her. And I have almost a two-year-old, he doesn't understand, but this will be pretty neat to share with him as well. Yeah, this is an unbelievable feeling."

Haas admitted that he's not a "ball-beater," one who practices endlessly to perfect his craft, preferring instead to spend time with his family in the off-season. He's also been forced to take it easy since breaking his wrist in a fall last year.

So he came to California a week early to work with instructor Bill Harmon in preparation for a tournament he won in 2010 and finished second at in a playoff a year later.

Haas didn't know what to expect when he arrived. "I remember Wednesday when I got there I just wasn't hitting it very good and (Harmon) said, how about one little bit of patience. You haven't hit a ball or played in two months, you're already fired up. So that, that sat with me a little bit. And we were on one hole, one tee shot, and my dad and Billy both said, well, I think your face of your club needs to look at the ball a little longer, which in turn squares your club at the top. Mine was open. I would fan it open and I was just hitting some pretty awful shots," Haas said Sunday evening.

"That one tip, that Billy came up with, for the face to look at the ball a little longer, it's something my dad does in his swing, so I think I just took a little page out of his book and certainly with Billy's eye to watch and see if I was doing it, was huge for me this week. I asked him, even I asked him to come watch me hit balls this morning, because I wasn't sure I was doing it right. So, he came and watched me hit a few (Sunday) morning on the range and he said it looked good, so that was kind of what I went with.

"I can't even explain, this is the first time I've won with being that unsure going into a week. I only won six times, so it's not like I won that many, but it's a great feeling to be that unsure going into a week, but have it all work out and play like this," added the 2011 Tour and FedEx Cup champion. "This is a lot a big team effort, I would say, with my dad and Billy and coming out here and working a week early and it's pretty special."

Here's what else Haas had to tell the media after securing his first victory since the AT&T National Pro-Am in 2013.

MODERATOR: We would like to welcome Bill Haas to the interview room at the Humana Challenge, your 2015 champion. His second Humana Challenge. Bill, if you want to kind of talk about your thoughts coming down the final where there was just a huge group of people right there one stroke behind you and then we'll take some questions.

BILL HAAS: Yeah, that was I feel like that's the only time I've been in a tournament where I've been maybe one ahead or tied, but not with five or six guys right behind me knowing that if I dump one in the water I go from winning to finishing 10th maybe. So, I just tried to stay focused, those last four holes get your attention on every shot. Now if you execute, they can be easy holes, but you certainly, as I proved on 18, if you don't execute, you can make a mess of them.

I was certainly feeling the pressure and I didn't feel sharp coming into this week. I came out here and worked hard, so I was doing my best to be sharp, but to have those feelings, to start the week and then there on Sunday and somewhat execute coming down the stretch is a great feeling.

Q. Lots of birdies, lots of eagles, but it looked like two pars won this for you. The one at 15 and the one at 18. Can you talk us through both of those.

BILL HAAS: Yeah, 15, it was right in between clubs for me. It was either a chippy little pitching wedge or a sand wedge. I don't have that gap wedge in my bag. So, I just didn't feel like I could get sand wedge there. So I chipped a pitching wedge and I just tugged it. Honestly it was maybe a yard from being a nice shot. And it one hopped into the bunker. I hit a pretty nice bunker shot to about six feet and that was one of the moments where I knew if I missed that I was leading to not, you know, maybe not even top 10.

So that was a putt where I told myself, you need to make this one, basically. I pumped myself up, I have talked to myself before on those putts and missed them, so it was an awesome feeling to make that putt. Then 18, the birdie at 16, obviously, was huge. Then, 18, to hit a bad drive, now I will say, I was doing everything I could to not go left, so what do you do, you go right. When I saw where it ended up I thought I could see it from the tee where it ended up and I was shocked. I thought, what a bad break. But then I just said, well it wasn't a good shot, so you got to deal with it.

Still new if I made par I was going to win. So that second shot became pretty key, because I could easily could have whiffed it, could have chunked it and moved it five yards and then I would lay up from there and then I needed to get up and down to win. So, it felt like a train wreck all coming together there, something bad was about to happen, but then the third shot just a knock it on the green I felt pretty comfortable over those last two putts.

Q. What was the club you hit on the second shot there and did you ever think about it looked like you rehearsed sideways and backwards and all kind of things.

BILL HAAS: I'm not good left handed at anything, so, and definitely not a golf swing. So, using the little toe of the club left handed, the water was in play, out of bounds might have been in play, I just didn't feel comfortable doing that. I have done the thing before backwards where you do it one handed and poke it down the fairway. I almost did that. But was able just to kind of my caddie, he kind of said, well, why don't you see if you can get in there and choke up and just poke it down the fairway. That was kind of what my decision was to do there at the end, was just somehow don't chunk this thing and move it 10 yards, just get it down the fairway.

Q. What was the club?

BILL HAAS: 8 iron. I needed some loft, and I was just probably aiming right of the fairway there, just trying, I knew it was going to go straight left when the ball is above your feet like that. Very fortunate to just get it down there to have a decent iron in. I hit 8 on my third shot as well. So that shot I'll remember for a long time, because that wasn't the easiest 8 iron I ever had.

Q. Driver, 8 iron, 8 iron?

BILL HAAS: Right. Easy hole, right?

Q. So you really had to improvise on that shot. It looked like it was about waist high or something like that, sort of a baseball swing, but you had to improvise on the shot out of the lake as well. Did you ever think of yourself before those two shots as sort of a good improvisational golfer?

BILL HAAS: I think of myself as more of an, I mean, a painter and not a mechanic, say. I'm more of a natural golfer than I don't have the perfect swing. I wish I could swing like Adam Scott, but I just don't have that ability. So therefore, I think I do have the ability to make do with what I have. Yeah, obviously the shot over the out of the water was an educated guess and certainly that second shot here was an educated guess. So, I would like to come down the stretch and knock it on in two and win by two one day, but that's just something you have to do. I think that, unfortunately, I put myself in that situation, but when you do that, you got to come up with something and it's happened before, improvising, and it not work out as well. So that was just fortunate.

Q. Scott was saying that the third shot wasn't that easy either, because you were on an up slope.

BILL HAAS: Yeah, it was on a pretty good up slope there and what's, usually, up slopes, the tendency is to pull it and we all know what's left of that pin. I couldn't go left. I guarantee you if I look at the coverage, my feet are probably aiming at that right bunker and I said, go ahead and release it, because I don't think I can had hook it that much. So I bet if you watch the coverage, it looks like a pull-hook almost to hit it where I hit it, but that was just kind of improvising and, like you say, trying not to hit it left, so go ahead and aim right and go ahead and release it and draw it in there. So that was kind of my thought process there. And I didn't take long, I don't like to think too much over shots like that.

Q. Did you talk about the 3 wood on 6 where the ball was way below your feet, you setup the eagle there?

BILL HAAS: Yeah, that was I hit it left there, was trying to go over those last bunkers and I just tugged it and I was hoping it would kick out of that stuff but it hung up in that brown dormant Bermuda grass. It was actually a 5 wood just, I felt like I needed loft. I could probably get a 3 iron to the front of the green, but I felt like I needed loft on the club just with that down slope, like you said, just to get it airborne. That was huge for me. Everybody, I had already gone a couple behind at that moment and Justin Thomas, wow, what a player he is. I never seen him hit a ball before, but I wish I was 21 again, watching him swing. That's impressive to watch. We'll see a lot more of him.

But I think he hit 6 iron in there and I was hitting 5 wood. So, I was just happy to get it up on the green and have a putt and that's what you have to do when your opponent is hitting 7 iron into par 5s. He hit 7 iron into 18. That's impressive stuff. So, just fortunate that 5 wood came out like it did. Because that Bermuda rough, anything can happen.

Q. Pretty easy off-season, because you had to rest the wrist, what did you do all that time when a professional golfer can't play golf?

BILL HAAS: I played a little bit. Now I think I probably misled a little bit. I didn't just put the clubs up. But I will say over my career, I've never been a big ball beater in the off-season or off weeks even. When I take weeks off, I like to spend time with my family, do other things. Fish, you know, just go do something outside of golf.

But then when it comes time to gear up to play, like I did out here, I focused on it pretty hard. And I was out here since last Wednesday and played every day and hit a bunch of balls. So, that's just the way I was brought up in golf with watching my dad do it is, he just said, when you go practice, go practice. But there's nothing wrong with getting away from it and giving yourself a break. So, not a whole lot - I had a lot of family time. It was great. I gained a little bit of weight. I tried to get in the gym a little bit, but with the wrist, I couldn't do too much. So that's kind of the plan is to try to get that even more healthy and get stronger and try to keep up with Justin Thomas.

Q. Winning had become pretty much an annual thing since you had won here the first time, not winning last year, was it weighing on you, this is a relief or you hasn't really started thinking about it?

BILL HAAS: It's definitely a relief. Any kind of a win is unbelievable. Honestly, if you would have told me I would have done this last week, I would have laughed at you. So, to be here is an unbelievable feeling. I can not wait to call my wife and talk with her. And I have almost a two year old, he doesn't understand, but this will be pretty neat to share with him as well. Yeah, this is an unbelievable feeling.

Q. Billy Harmon said that, kind of like your father, your game isn't tailored to winning five or six times a year and having a huge year, but really you're built for the long haul, even well into your Champions Tour days, like your father. Do you agree with that assessment and if so, why do you think that is?

BILL HAAS: Right now, I mean, I just don't think I'm quite as good as Rory McIlroy and Tiger Woods, but I do think I can play with them. All it takes is one week. Those guys weren't here, the top No. 1 and 2, 3 player in the world, but Matt Kuchar is here, Zach Johnson, Webb Simpson, Jason Dufner, Luke Donald, these are all guys that are really good. They beat me a lot of times. So to hang with them, it just take, if I can only win one a year for the rest of my career, I would be completely happy. Maybe that's just it, maybe I'm easily satisfied or something.

But if I could play until I'm 50, that's the ultimate, I would say, to be able to keep your card, continue to play out here with these young guys. I still feel young, but I'm not as young as I was. Hard to imagine I guess I could play for a Charles Schwab Cup, they just signed a 20 year extension, so I could be 52 and play for a couple Charles Schwab Cups. That would be amazing and I hope I am built for the long haul.

Q. First one, why were you so nervous and uncomfortable going into the week? What were your thoughts going in?

BILL HAAS: Just hadn't played, I guess as much as I would like. The last tournament I played was in China and it was awful. I hit I will probably never forget it - four greens in regulation on Saturday and seven greens in regulation on Sunday in China. So from that moment when I got home I said, all right, I need a break, I'm not playing well, so let's just get away from it. That was the time to rest the wrist. So that kind of is what spurred on the whole break thing.

Then coming out here, obviously, I hadn't played a whole lot, certainly not competitively. And the golf game, it was coming around, I guess, it wasn't I played other tournaments where I said, I'm going to do well this week. And this wasn't one of those weeks. Now, certainly, I always think I'm capable, it's just a matter of not screwing up enough. And this week I felt like for a number of those, there were a few holes where I made a couple nice pars, but overall it wasn't, I wasn't much grinding for par out there for 72 holes. That made things easier and I'm just lucky, because it easily could have gone, somebody that was near the lead right behind me could have gone lower; and yesterday the wind blew a little bit, so nobody went crazy low yesterday. So, everything just worked out for me.

Q. Justin Thomas, when you look at a kid who is 21 and is really as composed and as confident and smooth as he is, is it a different Tour now, do you think, with those younger guys and what their expectations are and what their abilities are?

BILL HAAS: I think that's been touched on a bunch the last few years with these young guys. They're studs that are coming out. It doesn't seem to phase them that they're on the PGA Tour. Now, does it change the Tour? No, because the guys that are 30, 35, that are No. 1 in the world - you know, Adam Scott, I think can play pretty good, too. He's confident. So I think that it doesn't change the Tour, but certainly guys at a younger age seem to be very polished and he was very, I was very impressed with his game out there.

He had a bad break on 16, he had just tied me on the hole before. He maybe hit the wrong club off the tee there. As long as he is, he doesn't need to hit 2 iron. He hit it on a string and just hit it too far and it cost him. That's something he's got to learn that. It won't take long and I think we'll see him in the winners circle maybe this year, for sure.

Q. Bill Harmon's always said he likes you to figure out what's wrong when things aren't right. What were you and he talking about last week? Was it fishing or was there something specific?

BILL HAAS: No, he said, I remember Wednesday when I got there I just wasn't hitting it very good and he said, how about one little bit of patience. You haven't hit a ball or played in two months, you're already fired up. So that, that sat with me a little bit. And we were on one hole, one tee shot, and my dad and Billy both said, well, I think your face of your club needs to look at the ball a little longer, which in turn squares your club at the top. Mine was open. I would fan it open and I was just hitting some pretty awful shots.

That one tip, that Billy came up with, for the face to look at the ball a little longer, it's something my dad does in his swing, so I think I just took a little page out of his book and certainly with Billy's eye to watch and see if I was doing it, was huge for me this week. I asked him, even I asked him to come watch me hit balls this morning, because I wasn't sure I was doing it right. So, he came and watched me hit a few this morning on the range and he said it looked good, so that was kind of what I went with.

I can't even explain, this is the first time I've won with being that unsure going into a week. I only won six times, so it's not like I won that many, but it's a great feeling to be that unsure going into a week, but have it all work out and play like this. This is a lot a big team effort, I would say, with my dad and Billy and coming out here and working a week early and it's pretty special.

Q. Go back to the bunker. Some of us were way up here, we couldn't quite see exactly. Where was the ball, did you hit it with your feet in the trap or out?

BILL HAAS: The ball I flew the bunker on the right and it just kind of trickled left and it stopped, basically it was hanging over the edge of the bunker. So the ball was probably waist high, a couple feet above where my feet were. Therefore, I had to kind of swing at it like a not, like a baseball, but a choked up, I knew I couldn't hit it very far.

Q. You were standing in the bunker?

BILL HAAS: Standing in the bunker.

Q. The ball was just on the edge of the bunker?

BILL HAAS: Um hum.

Q. You talked over the years about how much the benefit of the week with Billy and your dad is out here, is the biggest benefit mechanical and spending a week with your instructor and your dad or is it more just kind of a good feelings you have after a low key week of having fun with your dad and your instructor and just playing some golf?

BILL HAAS: I think both. Maybe even what you said more so the second. What you said the second time there. Being out here a week with my dad, watching him hit it, just playing golf, working on things, but having fun and golf become as job a lot for us. So playing golf with somebody you look up to like my dad and Billy, and working on your game, but also just having fun definitely gets you more in the moment of, let's just go have fun, let's go play good golf. And early in the year it does that to me as well, I think. I don't think it hasn't been enough golf tournaments for me to get so frustrated out there. We get tired, we play a lot, bad things happen over week after week, and I start getting frustrated. Early in the year I seem to be able to handle myself a little better.

Q. Kind of like, harkens when you're playing for fun and not money, when you were a kid, like a kid or an amateur?

BILL HAAS: Yeah.

Q. Okay.

BILL HAAS: Yeah, I think so.

Q. Billy mentioned yesterday that your left wrist isn't fully healed. As you go on in the season and you get into the Majors and the bigger events, are you concerned at all that you'll aggravate that or make the injury worse and maybe not have the season that you had hoped for?

BILL HAAS: Well, it's definitely a concern, just because any time your body doesn't feel great, you don't know what's going on. And there's a tiny little fracture and a tiny little bone in my wrist and I was able to play on it. It doesn't hurt that bad to hit, but I do think I favor it. I've lost distance since I hurt it. And that's something I've been complaining about. Just trying to let it get healthy enough to where I think I'm just, I can be more aggressive through the ball. Whether or not it hurts or not, I think my body's compensating for it a little bit, unconsciously. Hopefully, it's something that will heal itself and I can take this win is huge in the sense that I can maybe, if I was going to play one week, I could take another extra week off and try to be sharp for those weeks I do play.

MODERATOR: All right. Thank you for your time, Bill and thanks for being here.

BILL HAAS: Thank you.

The transcript for the above interview is courtesy of ASAP Sports.