José María Olazábal’s Most Valuable Card Is An N64 Game

José María Olazábal showcased on the cover of PGA European Tour for the N64 is another situation similar to when former college basketball star Jay Williams was the front man for NCAA 2K3 College Basketball on the Nintendo GameCube.

The main difference is this.  Jay Williams crashed and burned when he made it to the pros.  José María Olazábal on the other hand has had a long successful career in his given sport of choice golf.

Cards of Jay Williams are mainly used for kindling today.  Its a fair assumption to say that GameCube game is the only thing with his face on it that continues to hold any value.  Golf collectors don’t have much options when it comes to cards of José María Olazábal.  He only has (18) total cards.  Surprisingly none from Upper Deck given all of the golf products they use to make.  His rarest cards come from 2010 Leaf Sports Icons Cut Signatures Update and 2012 Sportkings.  Five out of his eighteen cards come from those two sets.  Each one is numbered one-of-one too.  Not the easiest to find.

When it comes to the world of golf cards, only a select few have a strong enough following to garner any real value.  I don’t believe José María Olazábal is one of those golfers.  If and when any of his one-of-one cards popup for sale, I highly doubt they would sell for much.  Despite being inducted into the World Golf Hall of Fame in 2009, and winning the Masters twice, this is just how things go.  Cards, even rare ones, of great golfers don’t always have the demand.  This is most likely why we haven’t seen a standalone golf product since 2014.  I’ve always enjoyed golf cards, found them fun to open, and wish they’d make a comeback.

PGA European Tour was released for the Nintendo 64 in 2000.  José María Olazábal already had his second Masters win, and made the box cover.  This game was released quite late in the N64’s lifecyle which resulted in not many being sold.  Sealed copies have been known to sell for $100-$200.  Some asking prices are even higher.  That’s a decent amount considering most sports games are rarely sought after for collecting purposes.

I know José María Olazábal is not the reason why this game is so collectible.  It wouldn’t matter who’s on the box really.  Things like this always catch my eye.