Other than Max Homa making a move to Cobra, the start of 2025 has been relatively quiet in terms of players changing gear sponsors. But with 2025 product starting to get out on Tour, plenty of pros have taken the opportunity to upgrade to the latest and greatest at the top of the bag.
While currently Callaway, Cobra and Cleveland (Titleist GT drivers have already been out since the summer) are the only OEMs to announce their 2025 drivers, Tour pros have a knack for getting the good stuff before us mere mortals can.
Keep reading below to see who is already playing new 2025 drivers this week at the Sentry in Hawaii.
Callaway Elyte
Callaway officially became the first OEM to launch their new driver in 2025 on Thursday with the unveiling of the Elyte product line.
Immediately, Xander Schauffele, who won two major championships last season with the Paradym Ai Smoke driver, switched into the new Elyte Triple Diamond driver.
“I have all the new Elyte woods in. It probably was — I’ve been with ’em, shoot, I’ve been with Callaway for, feels like six or seven years now, and I would say it was probably the easiest,” Schauffele said Tuesday. “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. Looking down and it’s good to go.”
According to Callaway Tour content manager Johnny Wunder, Schauffle’s final build is a 10.5-degree Triple Diamond head in the N/-1 setting with a Mitsubishi Diamana PD 70TX shaft at 45.5″ and tipped one inch, the same shaft from his Ai Smoke. He fired an opening round one-under 72 at Kapalua Thursday while gaining nearly a half-stroke off the tee.
Schauffele isn’t alone in switching to the new Elyte family. Akshay Bhatia, Max Greyserman, Adam Hadwin, Si Woo Kim, and defending champ Chris Kirk are all using the new driver at Kapalua as well.
Bhatia had been in the now three-year-old Rouge ST driver, which he had for both of his PGA Tour wins the last two seasons, but is now in an Eltye core head with a Fujikura Ventus Black 7-X. He opened with 71 on Thursday.
Cobra DS-ADAPT
Cobra made the biggest gear splash of 2025 so far when it announced Max Homa as their newest Tour staffer.
Homa is debuting the new DS-ADAPT LS driver this week. He’s playing a 9-degree head with the FutureFit33 hosel in the C4 setting, giving the club 9.4˚ of actual loft, and using a Fujikura Ventus Blue 7-X at 44.625 inches.
Homa shot an opening round four-under 69 with the new gear setup, gaining nearly eight-tenths of a stroke with the new driver in the process.
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The DS-ADAPT drivers were announced last month in an early launch and have been on the USGA conforming list since October. Rickie Fowler put the DS-ADAPT X driver into play last month at the Grant Thornton Invitational.
Ping G440
While still yet to be released, the Ping G440 has already picked up a worldwide win since being added to the conforming list in early December as Joaquin Niemann won the PIF Saudi International. Several players put the club into play at the Hero World Challenge and Grant Thornton Invitational last month.
At the Sentry, Ping staffers gaming the new G440 models include Corey Conners, Sahith Theegala and Austin Eckroat. Denny McCarthy and Taylor Pendrith are also playing the driver, though neither is under contract with Ping.
Conners began his 2025 season with a seven-under 66 Thursday using a G440 LST with a UST Mamiya Elements LIN-Q M40X White 6F5 shaft and had .917 strokes gained: off the tee.
TaylorMade Qi35
TaylorMade has just two staffers in the field in Maui after Scottie Scheffler’s shocking WD, but both are already gaming new and yet-to-be-released Qi35 drivers.
Collin Morikawa opened with a 66 with the new Qi35 LS driver while hitting 11 of 15 fairways at Kapalua and gaining nearly seven-tenths of a shot off the tee. Morikawa took until last season to finally retire his trusty SIM driver he used to win his two major championships in 2020 and 2021, but still trialed all three of TaylorMade’s Qi10 models in competition last year.
To start off 2025, he’s going with the same type of model he ended 2024 with (LS) and the same shaft in the Mitsubishi Diamana D+ Limited 60 TX.
Meanwhile Nick Dunlap, fresh off his PGA Tour Rookie of the Year season, is switching into the Qi35 core model. Dunlap earned his historic win at the American Express last season using the Qi10 LS, but gamed a Ping G430 LST toward the end of the season. Dunlap said he liked how the core model resembled the Ping.
“I think it’s a lot better for me,” Dunlap said. “The head’s a little bit bigger than they have in the past, the core head, I think it’s like LS, the core and the Max. And the core head’s a little bit bigger, looks more like my Ping. And they switched that, it’s gray on the top now instead of black, so I think it looks really, really good. I’m looking forward to playing it.”
Dunlap originally added the driver last month at the Grant Thornton Invitational, the same week the driver went on the conforming list.
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