1981 Donruss Golf #13 Jack Nicklaus RC: A Rookie Card Issued With Seventeen Majors Already Won, and 177 Gem Mints in 4,917 Graded
Jack Nicklaus's rookie card caught him twenty years into his professional career, with seventeen major championships already won. PSA catalogs 1981 Donruss Golf #13 as "Jack Nicklaus (R) (HOF)." It was issued the year he turned 41.
The Player
Nicklaus was born in Columbus, Ohio, on Jan. 21, 1940, won the U.S. Amateur in 1959 and 1961, and turned professional in 1961 at 21. His first professional win was the 1962 U.S. Open, taken from Arnold Palmer in an 18-hole playoff. He finished with 117 professional wins, 73 of them on the PGA Tour, and a record 18 major championships, and he led the PGA Tour money list eight times between 1964 and 1976. The World Golf Hall of Fame inducted him in 1974, seven years before this card existed.
The timing of the card is the interesting part. In 1979, Nicklaus did not win a single PGA Tour event, the first year of his professional career that had happened. In 1980 he came back with two majors.
The first was the U.S. Open at Baltusrol, where he opened with a record-tying 63, was caught by Isao Aoki going into the final round, and pulled away by two shots. His 272 broke the tournament's scoring record, which had been his own 275 from 1967 on the same course, and it stood until Rory McIlroy's 268 in 2011. It was his fourth U.S. Open title, tying Willie Anderson, Bobby Jones and Ben Hogan. Nicklaus called it "by far the most emotional and warmest reaction to any of my wins in my own country."
Later that year he won the PGA Championship at Oak Hill by seven shots over Andy Bean, the only player to finish under par for 72 holes. It was his fifth PGA title. So the man on the 1981 Donruss card was neither a prospect nor a farewell act. He was a 40-year-old who had just won two of the year's four majors.
And he was not finished. His last major came at the 1986 Masters, his sixth green jacket, won at 46. He remains the oldest Masters champion in history.
The Card
The design is plain early-1980s Donruss: a green border around the photo, an orange nameplate across the bottom reading "Jack Nicklaus," and the PGA TOUR logo stamped in the lower right corner of the picture. The photo is a follow-through: gloved hand high, eyes following the shot out of frame. No tournament, no trophy, just the swing.
The card is #13 in a 66-card set. TCDB lists the row plainly: "13 Jack Nicklaus RC."
PSA Population Report
| PSA Grade | Population |
|---|---|
| PSA 10 | 177 |
| PSA 9 | 1,203 |
| PSA 8 | 1,871 |
| Total Graded (All Grades) | 4,917 |
* Population data as of October 13, 2026. PSA population counts are dynamic and increase as more cards are submitted for grading.
What the Population Says
This is a card that survives. Of 4,917 graded copies, 3,251, about two in three, sit at PSA 8 or better. The PSA 8 is the most common of the three grades in the table, at 1,871.
The top of the curve is where it tightens. PSA 9s outnumber PSA 10s by almost seven to one, 1,203 to 177, and only 3.6% of all graded copies have reached Gem Mint. That gap between the nine and the ten is the card's condition story: plenty of copies come back sharp, and very few come back perfect.
Below the table, PSA's own cert lookup for a PSA 6 copy, cert 71005935, reports a population of 559 at that grade.
Why It Matters
The record holder for major championships got his rookie card at 41. It is a card of a champion at his peak, not a hopeful at his start, and its population shows a card collectors have kept in good shape for more than four decades.
Verdict: A rookie card with seventeen majors already behind it. 177 Gem Mint copies, 4,917 graded, and a Golden Bear who still had a sixth Masters to win.
