Justin Thomas takes on a certain look when he’s in full flow. Jay Seawell, the University of Alabama’s men’s golf coach, first saw it more than a decade ago when Thomas was a scrawny, 130-pound freshman who, in his collegiate debut for the Tide, was trying to beat a player who was just months away from his Masters debut.

Seawell’s new star, Thomas, looked so comfortable on the final nine that when they came to a par-5 with water around the green, the Alabama coach didn’t ask him to lay up after he drove his ball into the rough.

“I said, ‘I think you have this shot,’” Seawell said recently. “It was a high-risk, low-margin shot.”

What compelled him to give such advice? The look. Sure enough, Thomas hit his hybrid to a foot and made an eagle that was part of a nine-hole stretch that he played in 8 under. His back-nine 30, and final-round 65, were good for a four-shot win after starting the day two back.

Seawell now has a name for that look. He calls it “The JT.”

“He just looked comfortable,” Seawell said, “like it was an everyday round. I’ve always said that’s his biggest attribute, that he’s most comfortable in uncomfortable situations.”

Seawell saw something similar when he watched the final round of THE PLAYERS Championship last year. Having rallied just to make the cut, Thomas shot 64-68 on the weekend to become just the fourth player to win a PLAYERS, FedExCup, World Golf Championship and a major in his career.

THE PLAYERS was the 14th PGA TOUR win for Thomas, who is still just 28.

While some players get tense during the stress of a late Sunday tee time, and others overcompensate with gregarious behavior, Seawell sees in Thomas a man who enjoys the moment. The club twirls, the dialogue with his ball – Thomas implored it to “Do something” as it rolled onto the green at the par-5 11th to set up a crucial eagle in the final round of last year’s PLAYERS – are all part of it.

But the look would be nothing without the shotmaking to back it up. Thomas put on a show in the final rounds at TPC Sawgrass. He said afterward that he was in that hard-to-attain state known as “the zone.”

“It just seemed like whatever I tried or wanted to do,” he said, “the ball would just do it.”

Added Seawell, “When he gets that look, it’s kind of like, ‘He has this.’ It’s like, ‘This is fun.’ He’s comfortable and fully confident. He has a little showman in him. He’s showing off to himself, not doing it for other people.”

Thomas is arguably the TOUR’s best iron player post-Tiger, ranking no worse than sixth in Strokes Gained: Approach-the-Green in the previous five seasons. He’s finished third, first and second in that statistic in the past three years.

In those final two rounds at TPC Sawgrass last year, he gained more than 11 strokes on the field with his tee-to-green play. That’s the most by a PLAYERS champion since the Strokes Gained stats began in 2004. He hit his first 17 greens in regulation in the final round.

Thomas takes an old-school approach to his craft. In an age when analytics and lower-spinning balls have lessened how much players curve the ball, Thomas likes to shape his shots. It’s something he started at a young age, when he quickly displayed a propensity for excellent iron play.

“He flushed it when he was 5 years old,” said his father and coach, Mike. “It was just crazy. When people ask me about some of the things that surprised me, that was a big shock early on. I can’t believe how solid he hit the ball every single time. I just remember literally at 5 years old, if he hit a bag of balls, he would mishit two of them. He just always hit it in the center of the clubface.

“Hitting it in the center of the face and being on plane,” Mike Thomas continued, “you can hit any shot you want if you can do those two things.”

Within a couple of years, while most kids his age only had a couple irons in the bag because there wasn’t much disparity in distance between the clubs, Justin required a full set.

Seawell shares a story from Thomas’ time in Tuscaloosa about his players’ competitions to see if anyone could hit a flagstick about 150 yards away. The best way to hit it was to curve the ball toward the target instead of hitting a straight ball. Seawell remembers the time Thomas hit the stick twice in one day, earning $20 from his teammates each time.

“I remember the agitation among other players when he did it twice,” Seawell said. “The creative part of the game gives him a lot of life.”

Thomas compares his iron play to Jordan Spieth’s putting and Rory McIlroy’s driver. It’s the part of the game that comes naturally.

“It’s just the area in my game that I have to think the least,” he said. “That, I think, kind of speaks for itself.”

His creativity only increased as he got on TOUR and realized he needed more shots to handle the more difficult setups. That assessment was confirmed after one of the first times he was paired with Woods, who has become a friend in South Florida. Thomas asked him afterward for an honest assessment.

“Immediately, he’s like, ‘You don’t have near enough shots. … You have some that you can hit, but you don’t have all of them and you don’t have enough,’” Thomas recalled.

“It’s like, ‘All right.’”

That encouraged Thomas to continue down a path that he was already on, and perhaps pick up the pace. Golf Channel commentator Brandel Chamblee sees several aspects of Thomas’ swing that allow him to hit a variety of shots.

“Because of his very upright swing – the most upright in the game, I believe – and the fact that he turns his shoulders massively without a lot of spine tilt away from the target … he has the ability to both trap and take something off his irons or send them into the stratosphere,” Chamblee said. “His swing affords him so many gears.

“He has the best of both worlds. He’s able to launch long-irons high and can hit short irons low.”

Thomas says he quickly fell in love with TPC Sawgrass because it demands shot-shaping; many holes are S-shaped, requiring a draw off the tee and fade into the green, or vice versa.

The 16th hole in last year’s final round served as a canvas for Thomas’ artistry. He slung a low, swinging hook around the dogleg – his drive peaked at just 48 feet off the ground – to give himself a chance to hit the green in two. With the ball on an upslope and above his feet, he hit a cut 5-wood onto the green, intentionally shaping his ball toward the water on the right.

Jim “Bones” Mackay, now Thomas’ caddie, was calling Thomas’ group for the NBC broadcast last year. He called that 5-wood one of the five best shots he saw during his time as a television commentator.

“It was one of those shots you wish you had an additional 30 seconds … just to say, ‘You’ll never know how good that was,’” said Mackay.

He says was impressed when he first saw Thomas, during a practice round for the 2014 U.S. Open, but also speaks highly about how quickly he progressed since then, becoming a major winner (PGA Championship) and FedExCup champion just three years later.

“As much speed as he can generate, he knows where that clubhead is,” Mackay said. “He hits the ball very, very flush. He can take speed off very effectively. He’s creative. He has good hands. Like Tiger and Phil, those guys that can do all those things – that aren’t one-dimensional, or even two-dimensional – are very successful.”

Thomas showed that at THE PLAYERS last year.