Dan Hicks, NBC's Voice of Golf for a Generation, Dies at 64

For a generation of golf fans, the biggest Sundays came with the same voice attached. Tiger Woods rolling in a 12-footer on a fractured leg at Torrey Pines. Three decades of weekends at TPC Sawgrass. The FedExCup coming down to the final holes at East Lake. Dan Hicks was on the call for all of it, prepared, unhurried and never louder than the moment needed him to be.

Hicks, NBC Sports' lead golf play-by-play announcer since 2000, died late Wednesday in Connecticut after an acute illness, his wife, broadcaster Hannah Storm, said in a statement, per the AP (opens in a new tab). He was 64. NBC Sports (opens in a new tab) and the PGA TOUR (opens in a new tab) shared the news Thursday morning. Storm described the death as sudden and unexpected.

"Dan was truly one of a kind and, quite simply, the person everyone wanted to be around," Storm said.

From Tucson to the tower

Hicks grew up in Tucson, Ariz., graduated from the University of Arizona and got his start in local radio and television, according to the PGA TOUR. He spent three years at CNN before joining NBC in 1992. On the network's golf telecasts he worked as a tower announcer from 1995 to 1999, per the AP, then moved into the lead chair for the 2000 season.

What followed was one of the longest runs in the business. For nearly two decades Hicks sat beside two-time major champion Johnny Miller, a pairing that gave NBC golf its personality: Miller supplying the opinions, Hicks steady enough to let them breathe. The TOUR credits him with anchoring NBC's weekend coverage of THE PLAYERS Championship for three decades, along with calling the TOUR Championship as the FedExCup grew up around it. His résumé also ran through the U.S. Open, The Open, the Ryder Cup and the Presidents Cup.

The numbers are staggering. By the AP's count, Hicks called 27 Tiger Woods victories, three of them U.S. Opens, plus 27 U.S. Opens and 23 U.S. Women's Opens overall.

"Expect anything different?"

If one call defines him, it is from June 2008. Woods, playing with shredded ligaments in his left knee and a double stress fracture in his leg, stood over a 12-foot birdie putt on the 18th hole at Torrey Pines, needing it to force a playoff with Rocco Mediate. The ball curled in.

"Expect anything different?" Hicks said.

Four words, no shouting. Woods went on to win a 19-hole Monday playoff, and Hicks' line became part of the footage every golf fan can replay in their head. The PGA TOUR's own tribute leans on that same idea, calling his voice woven into fans' memories of the game.

He stayed close to the TOUR's biggest stages right to the end. Hicks interviewed Rory McIlroy after McIlroy beat J.J. Spaun in a playoff at the 2025 PLAYERS, and he sat down with Brian Rolapp during the third round of the 2026 PLAYERS, according to photos the TOUR published with its tribute.

Far more than golf

Golf was the headline job, not the only one. Hicks worked his first Olympics in Barcelona in 1992 and became NBC's Olympic swimming voice, calling the sport eight times alongside Rowdy Gaines. That included all eight of Michael Phelps' gold medals in Beijing in 2008, per NBC Sports. He also handled Alpine skiing at the last four Winter Games and speed skating in 2002, 2006 and 2010, the AP reported.

The list keeps going. Hicks called regional NFL games for NBC from 1992 to 1997, five French Opens and some NBA coverage from 1992 to 2000, according to the AP. This fall was his seventh season as the play-by-play voice of Notre Dame football, a job he held from 2013 to 2016 before returning in 2024. He was scheduled to call the Irish again this weekend.

In a September interview with the AP, Hicks summed up his career in one line: "I'm incredibly lucky to stay at one place this long."

The tributes

NBC Sports executives Rick Cordella, Sam Flood and Molly Solomon said in a statement: "Dan Hicks was an extraordinary colleague, friend and person." They called him the "signature voice of our golf coverage for the last 26 years," per Golf Channel (opens in a new tab).

"We are devastated by the sudden loss of Dan Hicks," the PGA TOUR said. The USGA's Mike Whan called him "a wonderful person whose warmth, generosity, and friendship touched everyone fortunate enough to know him," per the AP.

The people who shared a booth or a tower with him went straight to the personal. "He always had a question. He always got you engaged," Roger Maltbie said, per the AP. Gaines, his partner at eight Olympic swimming competitions, put it more plainly: "He made me laugh like no other person ever has."

The last word

The best play-by-play announcers make you forget they are working. Hicks did that for a quarter century on NBC's golf coverage, setting the table for Miller and the analysts who came after, and trusting the picture to do the shouting. When the moment was enormous, he usually said less, not more. That is a rarer skill than it sounds, and it is why so many of golf's defining shots still play back in his voice.

Hicks is survived by Storm, his wife of 32 years, and their three daughters, Hannah, Ellery and Riley.

Sources: NBC Sports, PGA TOUR, the Associated Press and Golf Channel. More golf coverage on Undrafted.

Photo: Stan Badz/PGA TOUR via Getty Images via PGA TOUR.