diff --git a/CHANGES.txt b/CHANGES.txt
index 0b818a2b50d..a6ad783c220 100644
--- a/CHANGES.txt
+++ b/CHANGES.txt
@@ -447,6 +447,7 @@ Release 0.20.0 - Unreleased
    HBASE-1575  HMaster does not handle ZK session expiration
    HBASE-1620  Need to use special StoreScanner constructor for major compactions
                (passed sf, no caching, etc) (Jon Gray via Stack)
+   HBASE-1624  Don't sort Puts if only one in list in HCM#processBatchOfRows
 
   OPTIMIZATIONS
    HBASE-1412  Change values for delete column and column family in KeyValue
diff --git a/src/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/client/HConnectionManager.java b/src/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/client/HConnectionManager.java
index ca2503eccb7..58a146458b8 100644
--- a/src/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/client/HConnectionManager.java
+++ b/src/java/org/apache/hadoop/hbase/client/HConnectionManager.java
@@ -1003,7 +1003,9 @@ public class HConnectionManager implements HConstants {
       }
       boolean retryOnlyOne = false;
       int tries = 0;
-      Collections.sort(list); 
+      if (list.size() > 1) {
+        Collections.sort(list);
+      }
       List<Put> currentPuts = new ArrayList<Put>();
       HRegionLocation location =
         getRegionLocationForRowWithRetries(tableName, list.get(0).getRow(),