Dan Hicks, NBC's Voice of Golf and the Olympics for Three Decades, Dies at 64

For more than three decades, Dan Hicks was the calm, warm voice that told Americans what they were watching when history happened, whether on the back nine on a Sunday afternoon or in an Olympic pool in the middle of the night. Hicks, NBC Sports' lead golf play-by-play announcer, has died at 64 following an acute illness, his wife, ESPN broadcaster Hannah Storm, announced Thursday.

Golf Channel reported that he died Wednesday, and Heavy described his death as following a sudden illness. Storm wrote that the family was heartbroken by his sudden and unexpected passing, calling him a devoted husband of more than 30 years and a loving father to their three daughters, Hannah, Ellery and Riley. "Dan was truly one of a kind," she wrote. She remembered a man who was kind, thoughtful and funny, the person everyone wanted to be around.

Hicks graduated from the University of Arizona in 1984 and worked at KVOA in Tucson before joining CNN in Atlanta in 1989. He joined NBC Sports in 1992 and spent years as a tower announcer before becoming the network's lead golf play-by-play voice in 2000.

From that chair, he anchored NBC's coverage of the U.S. Open, the Open Championship, the Ryder Cup, the Presidents Cup and the U.S. Women's Open, and he was the voice of The Players Championship for almost 30 years. Working alongside Johnny Miller, he called Tiger Woods' putt to force a playoff at the 2008 U.S. Open.

His other great stage was the Olympics. Hicks worked 16 Games, 15 of them as a play-by-play announcer, beginning in Barcelona in 1992, and most recently called alpine skiing at the Milan Cortina Winter Games this year. With Rowdy Gaines beside him, he called the U.S. comeback in the men's 4x100-meter freestyle relay at the 2008 Beijing Games, the gold-medal race led by Michael Phelps. He won a Sports Emmy for NBC's coverage of the 2024 Paris Olympics.

Football fans knew him, too. Hicks called NFL games and worked as an NBA sideline reporter for NBC. He took over Notre Dame football play-by-play from Tom Hammond in 2013 before Mike Tirico later succeeded him, and he returned as NBC's lead Notre Dame voice in 2024. He was scheduled to call Saturday's Notre Dame-Boston College game alongside analyst Jason Garrett and sideline reporter Caroline Pineda, USA Today reported.

Hicks' passing touched both of the networks his family calls home. NBC Sports president Rick Cordella and executive producers Sam Flood and Molly Solomon called him "an extraordinary colleague, friend and person", praising his blend of knowledge, style, enthusiasm and humor and remembering a man who welcomed teammates with a smile. ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro said the network was deeply saddened by his sudden passing.

Hicks and Storm met at CNN and were married in January 1994. Heavy noted that he spent more than three decades with NBC Sports.

Some broadcasters shout. Dan Hicks never had to. He knew the moment was bigger than he was, and he let it breathe. When a putt was rolling toward the cup with a major on the line, or an American swimmer was chasing down the wall in Beijing, he gave you the facts, a little lift in his voice, and then got out of the way. That's a rare kind of humility in a business that rewards the loudest man in the room.

But a man's work is only one measure of his life. By every account, Hicks was married to the same woman for more than 30 years, raised three daughters and treated the people around him with kindness. His colleagues didn't talk first about his calls. They talked about his smile and his decency. That's a legacy worth honoring, and one worth imitating.

For millions of families, his voice was part of the furniture of American sports: Sunday afternoons in the spring, summer nights every four years when the whole country cheered for the red, white and blue. It's hard to imagine the next big Sunday on the back nine without him.

Our prayers are with Hannah Storm and their daughters, and with everyone at NBC who now has to fill a chair that no one will ever quite fill. May he rest in peace.