Bill Haas Beats Hunter Mahan, Wins Tour Championship and $10 Million FedExCup

Unexpected.

I beat Bill Haas to that description of his victory by a couple of hours because the leaderboard during the back nine reflected the winners in 2011. Not that it matters. He’s got the $10 million plus the Tour Championship's first-place check.

His sudden-death playoff victory at the Tour Championship over Hunter Mahan was like golf in 2011—something different every time you turned around. It was also a lesson in the fact that no matter who has what level of talent, you can’t measure “want to.” 

Aaron Baddeley wanted to be on the Presidents Cup team because it is being played in Australia and his golf hero is Greg Norman. It is likely he will be selected because of his performance this week.

Luke Donald wants to be the money winner on two tours. He still has a shot at that. He’s going to Europe to play two events.

Jason Day wanted another PGA Tour victory, but it will likely have to wait until next season unless he plays some of the fall series.

Charles Howell III wanted to win again. It’s been four seasons since his last victory and four seasons since he made it to the Tour Championship.

Phil Mickelson wanted his major championship form back.  

Bill Haas wanted to be on the Presidents Cup team because his dad is an assistant captain. 

Like the story of Cinderella, only one foot would fit the glass slipper. This week, it was the Footjoy foot of Bill Haas.

“This is very unexpected, I guess,” Haas said after his victory. “Last week I had a terrible finish on Sunday, a terrible back nine, and tried not to let that get me down. Just tried to tell myself, ‘Try and put yourself in that same situation and try to prove to yourself that you can handle it.’”

“Last week, thinking about the Presidents Cup hurt him,” his caddy, Jay Haas Jr., said after team Haas won. “This week we decided to just play golf. Yesterday he was frustrated after the round, and I said, ‘At the beginning of the week, would you have taken a tie for fifth going into the Sunday round?’ And he said, ‘Yes.’”

“I was fortunate to get in a playoff. It was my third one this year, I was zero-for-two coming into this one,” Bill Haas explained. “I told myself, ‘It's not over until it's over. You never know what can happen. I could hole this chip, anything can happen.’”

Talk about being a master of the understatement.  

The playoff began on the par-three 18th. Both Haas and Hunter Mahan (who he tied with at the end of regulation) missed the green, but eventually made par. 

It was on to the 17th. 

Mahan was in the fairway off the tee. Haas’s tee shot hit in the right bunker. His shot to the green hit the putting surface, but low-hopped left and trundled down the slope toward the water.

Mahan’s second was on the green. 

Advantage Mahan.  

It looked like he would win. The people in charge of carrying the trophy made a golf cart caravan over to the 17th, anticipating the tournament’s end and a trophy presentation.

“I thought it [the ball] was in the water for sure and that we'd have to hole it for a tie,” Jay Haas Jr. said. 

Then they got to the ball and were surprised.

“It looked like he could play it. It was half to a quarter of the way in the water,” Haas Jr. added. “We were hoping to get on the green from there and then putt for par,”   

Brother Bill blasted out of the water hazard to about two feet from the pin and made the par putt to stay even with Mahan, who probably was wondering what he had to do to win. When he looks back on it, it may be the best 60-degree wedge of his life.

The trophy team piled back in golf carts and bustled back up the hill to the 18th.

“You play it like a bunker shot, for those of you that want to know, if there's a little bit of water, if you don't mind getting your feet dirty, and then blast it out of there. It came out perfect,” Bill Hass explained. 

He added that he was lucky. And he thanked FootJoy for the waterproof shoes. 

“It was an all-or-nothing shot, so if I don't pull it off, I'm shaking Hunter's hand, so it didn't matter if my foot was dirty.”

They headed to the 18th tee. 

Neither golfer hit a good tee shot. Mahan found the right bunker and Haas was on the back fringe, 50-plus feet away. Mahan hit his sand shot beyond the cup—not a gimme par. 

Haas rolled his belly putter almost into the fringe because it was the only way he could get close to the hole with a putt. It stopped about four feet from the flag stick.  

Mahan missed his putt for par and Haas made it, eliciting a major-like roar from the crowd. 

Haas improved his playoff record and his bank account in one stroke.

But he was the last to know.

Immediately after the putt dropped, he did some television interviews and then returned to the 18th for the trophy presentation.

“Both trophies were there and there was no other player, so I kind of assumed, and I looked at my wife and she was there, and she nodded her head. So that was when I realized,” Haas said about the victory and winning the FedExCup. “I saw Tim Finchem, I said, ‘I didn't know I had won this,’ and he was like, ‘Congratulations, you won both.’”

Haas thought that Luke Donald had possibly won the FedExCup and even congratulated him at the end of regulation. But it was not to be.

“I don't know how many times I can say the word 'fortunate,' but if Webb [Simpson] plays a little bit better—or all these things had to happen for me to win and it did,”  Haas added. “My hands were shaking. My hands were shaking in regulation, in the playoff, that last putt there.”

Bill is not sure brother Jay will stay on the bag after their victory, but Jay did not look at all frustrated after the victory. He looked proud.

“My brother has been awesome,” Bill Haas said. “He's taken more lip from me the last month-and-a-half than he ever deserves to. I'm sure he'll take this cut he gets from this and probably run with it and say 'See you later'! But it was awesome having him on the bag.”

As far as being picked for the Presidents Cup, he said he had done what he needed to do. It’s not in his hands anymore.

This playoff is not the only one in FedExCup history and is one of eight since the Tour Championship began in 1987. However, it is the only one that has decided both the tournament and the FedExCup winners.

In the FedExCup era, Camilo Villegas beat Sergio Garcia in 2008, but the $10 million, first-place check went to Vijay Singh that season.

Other Tour Championship Playoffs

1. Mike Weir defeated Ernie Els, Sergio Garcia and David Toms in 2001

2. Hal Sutton defeated Vijay Singh in 1998

3. Mark McCumber defeated Fuzzy Zoeller in 1994 

4. Craig Stadler defeated Russ Cochran in 1991

5. Tom Kite defeated Payne Stewart in 1989

6. Jodie Mudd defeat Bily Mayfair in 1990

7. Curtis Strange defeated Tom Kite in 1988   

Other FedExCup Finale Facts:

Matt Kuchar won more money without winning a tournament than any player in history: $4,192,187. And this was before the FedExCup payout.  

The round of the day belonged to Gary Woodland, with a minus-four 66. He will play in the World Cup, but said although the Tour Championship was “awesome and the course was perfect and the fans were great,” his offseason will be spent working on his game. 

Woodland said he has a lot of areas to improve.

“I need to get better,” he said simply. He repeated it for emphasis. In his first complete season on the PGA Tour, he has a victory and is now exempt in all four majors in 2012 and has a two-year PGA Tour exemption.

Not bad for a newbie, but he can still see areas for improvement. 

Kathy Bissell is a golf writer for Bleacher Report. Unless otherwise noted, all quotes were obtained firsthand or from official interview materials from the USGA, PGA Tour or PGA of America.