Titleist GT280 Mini Driver Review

After successful tour-seeding, the Titleist GT280 has finally hit the market, and I’ve been testing it over the last few weeks to see if it’s the right club to go in your bag.

We had our first taste of a Titleist Mini Driver back in early 2024, when the Titleist TSR Mini Driver was spotted on tour. The Titleist GT family released shortly after, with the TSR being held off from a consumer launch, paving the way for the Titleist GT280.

Early 2025 saw the Titleist GT280 appear on our screens, and I knew straight away it was a club that I had to try.

Classic inspiration on a modern club style. Who is the Titleist GT280 targeted at?

Let’s dive in and find out.

Looks, Sound and Feel – 5/5

I recently reviewed the new TaylorMade R7 Quad Mini Driver and gave it 5 out of 5 for looks, sound and feel as well, but for very different reasons.

The Titleist GT280 takes inspiration from the extremely successful Titleist 975D from seasons past, incorporating design elements from the 975D with a fresh, modern refresh in the GT family. As you can guess from the name, Titleist’s Mini Driver is 280cc, making it the smallest mini driver across OEM’s by 20cc, being 60cc smaller than Callaway’s Elyte Mini Driver.

Whether this is a positive or negative depends on what you’re after. A direct driver replacement would be more of a Callaway Elyte Mini Driver or TaylorMade R7 Quad Mini. From a looks reasoning, this would sit more of a 2 wood, sitting alongside your driver and serving different goals for the golfer. From a profile point of view, the Titleist GT280 is quite similar to the GT1, although the CG location and overall engineering is very different.

The Titleist GT280 is built around the same core design technology as the mainline GT woods, and you can feel this in the sound and feel of the club. I’ve had the Titleist GT2 fairway wood in the bag on and off since it was released, and could feel the similarities with this and the GT280. The elegant, premium Titleist feel shines through in their mini driver, which is no surprise to many.

Forgiveness and Control – 4.5/5

From a playing profile perspective, the Titleist GT280 will be slightly less forgiving than the Callaway Elyte Mini Driver and TaylorMade R7 Quad Mini. However, Titleist have incorporated their GT technology into the GT280, to ensure ball speed is maintained across the face.

The L-Cup shares its tech with some of the brand’s T-Series irons, which also use L-Cup Face to improve the structure of the lower face-to-sole connection. This means you’ll get stronger and thinner sections, allowing for better ball speed on strikes from closer to the bottom grooves.

The lowered leading edge means the GT280 hugs the ground more, giving a more confidence-inspiring look and help on the heel and toe misses.

I found that with the leading edge hugging the ground more, I was able to utilise this from a variety of lies, making this the most versatile Mini Driver on the market. the 13.5 degrees of loft allows the Mini Driver to appear easy to strike off the deck, despite its relatively deep face. With other Mini Drivers in 2025, I found myself trying to set it up to hit one shot, and one shot only. With the Titleist GT280, I found myself playing around with different shot shapes, launch conditions, and lies based on the hole that was in front of me.

The best example I can give to this is Mannings Heath Golf & Wine Estate’s treacherous 7th hole. 430 yard par 4, dog leg left, with trees covering the left stopping the serial slicer hitting his desired shot shape.

My standard swing path is out to in, with the result being a slight fade, so this hole never suits my eye. With the Titleist GT280, I had the confidence to attempt a draw, which I executed very well. For someone who wants to operate on various different shot shapes and launch conditions, the Titleist GT280 is the best Mini Driver out there.

Technology and Components – 4.5/5

Alongside the renowned GT technology that’s present in all of their metalwoods for 2025, the Titleist GT280 has dual weighting in front-to-rear adjustable weights, impacting the CG location and thus changing the launch conditions/total forgiveness.

Compared to the other Mini Drivers on the market, this is the only model that does not feature movable weighting for a desired shot shape, which can be seen as a negative in the overall adjustability standings. Titleist have chosen to counteract this by including their revolutionary SureFit adaptor, giving you 16 different loft sleeve positions for the desired face angle.

If you do want to fine tune the CG location further, you can purchase different weights to the 11 and 3 gram weights available as standard through the fitting. I found that I experienced some excellent results with the 11 gram weight moved to the back, increasing the MOI and launch of the club and separating it even further away from my driver of choice.

Final Verdict – 4.5/5

Although I’ve given the same rating to TaylorMade, Callaway and Titleist for their Mini Driver offerings for 2025, the Titleist GT280 is the only model that I believe serves a different purpose.

I look at it more like a 2 wood to sit alongside my driver, and would not encourage any amateur golfer to use it as a replacement for their driver woes.

I am a player who struggles with fairway woods, and always has done throughout my semi-illustrious golfing career. The Titleist GT280 bridges the gap between fairway wood and driver, whilst not sitting too close to either of them.

If you’re looking for a driver replacement, I’d look at the Callaway Elyte Mini Driver. If you’re a player who wants a Mini Driver to complement your driver, with the versatility of a strong lofted 3 wood, then the Titleist GT280 should be at the top of your list.

RRP $499.99 / £459   

Lofts: 13.5

Length:  43.5” 

Head size: 280CC 

Stock shafts: Mitsubishi Tensei 1K Blue 65g / 75g

Stock grip: Titleist Universal Grip