LA QUINTA, Calif. — Bill Haas had a bad feeling.

“It felt like a train wreck all coming together,” Haas said.

Leading by a stroke on the final hole Sunday in the Humana Challenge, Haas flew the right bunker with his drive and the ball trickled left and stopped on the ledge of the front lip.

“I could see from the tee where it ended up and I was shocked,” Haas said.

Haas came up with an imaginative escape, conjuring memories of the shot he splashed out of the water to 3 feet in his playoff victory in the 2011 Tour Championship,

“I think of myself as more of a painter and not a mechanic,” Haas said.

Standing in the sand with the ball in dormant grass at nearly waist level, he choked up on an 8-iron and gave it a whack.

“I easily could have whiffed it, could have chunked it and moved it 5 yards,” Haas said.

Instead, he hit it 80 yards down the fairway. That left him 170 yards on the par 5 and he hit another 8-iron safely to the middle of the green to set up his winning two-putt par.

He was afraid to hit left-handed and considered a one-handed shot standing backward.

“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,” Haas said.

Haas pulled ahead with a 20-foot birdie putt on the par-4 16th and escaped with the par on 18 for a one-stroke victory. He closed with a 5-under 67 for his sixth PGA Tour title. The 32-year-old former Wake Forest player won the 2010 event for his first tour victory.

“Honestly, if you would have told me I would have done this last week, I would have laughed at you,” Haas said. “To be here is an unbelievable feeling.”