NEWS FROM THE TOUR VANS
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With the start of the 2025 PGA Tour season in Hawaii came another addition to Titleist’s line of GT metalwoods in tour bags – the GT280 mini driver.
The GT280’s introduction during The Sentry at Kapalua marked the start of Titleist’s tour validation process for the new mini driver, providing players the opportunity to game the new model in competition for the first time. That process continued last week in the season’s first full-field event, the Sony Open in Hawaii at Waialae.
The GT280’s roots go back to earlier last year with the TSR 2W prototype that Cameron Young debuted at the Players Championship. Titleist’s tour reps and engineers continued working with players like Young and Will Zalatoris to dial in a 13-degree head that players could use both off the tee and off the deck.
Further GT driver adoptions at Kapalua included Wyndham Clark, Russell Henley (both GT3, 10 degrees) and Aaron Rai (GT2, 9 degrees) while Clark, Zalatoris and Ludvig Åberg (each Pro V1x) were among six players in the Sentry field to put the new 2025 Pro V1 balls into play for the first time.
Åberg made the move to 2025 Pro V1x after an offseason session with Fordie Pitts, Titleist’s director of tour validation and research, and further on-course testing at home in Florida.
“Just to tighten that [spin] window a little bit was a big deal with the driver,” Åberg said. “And then I felt like my irons reacted very similar and then just a little bit softer and more spin control I think around the greens. So I’ll take that.
“The game at our level is so tight and a good season can be separated by just a couple of points here and there. So if you can find just a little bit that’ll make you a little bit better, a little bit more consistent or a little bit more control, I’m going to be up for it and I think most guys will too.”
Of course, the big story last week was Hideki Matsuyama gaming for the first time his center-shafted Scotty Cameron 009M tour prototype putter and riding it to an astounding PGA Tour 72-hole record 35-under par winning score on the par-73 Plantation Course, making a record 35 birdies and two eagles in breaking par on more than half the holes he played. Matsuyama gained more than five shots (+5.419/third) on the field putting and averaged nearly 100 feet of putts per day en route to a three-shot win over Collin Morikawa.
“I saw somebody else using it and I thought, ‘Oh, this looks good,’ so I had them make one,” Matsuyama said. “I received the putter after Christmas, and I used the putter for the first time here.”
Matsuyama didn’t have much explanation for why the new putter suited him so perfectly on their first date. “I'm not sure, but it went in, so …” he said before heading off to use it again at Waialae.
Meanwhile, world No. 2 Xander Schauffele implemented some big changes in his first 2025 start by gaming the new Callaway Elyte Triple Diamond driver and new Callaway Elyte Triple Diamond 3HL fairway wood at The Sentry.
“I have all the new Elyte woods in,” he said. “I’ve been with Callaway for, feels like six or seven years now, and I would say it was probably the easiest … I’ve been testing the Elyte driver for two months, and I literally have the exact same driver that they gave me in Vegas as my first look thing they did for their social media team. So it’s been such an easy, super easy transition, and I really haven’t really felt like I thought much about it.”
Schauffele also put in a fresh set of Callaway Apex TCB ’24 irons into play.
Scott Michaux