Dan Hicks dies at 64: from Tiger’s U.S. Open putt to Phelps’s eight golds

Dan Hicks, the NBC broadcaster whose voice carried Tiger Woods’s U.S. Open drama and Michael Phelps’s Olympic victories, died Wednesday, November 11, at 64, NBC Sports reported Thursday.

His wife, ESPN anchor Hannah Storm, said in a public statement that his death followed an acute illness. She described a devoted husband of more than 30 years and father to their three daughters, remembering his kindness, humor and ability to bring people together. She did not identify a specific illness.

NBC executives Rick Cordella, Sam Flood and Molly Solomon remembered both his broadcasting and the encouragement he gave colleagues. Hicks joined the network in 1992 and became its lead golf announcer in 2000.

One summer, two very different stages

The summer of 2008 captures the breadth of his work. When Woods made the U.S. Open putt that forced a playoff, Hicks asked, “Expect anything different?” Two months later, he called all eight of Phelps’s gold medals at the Beijing Olympics. NBC credits him with calling all 28 of Phelps’s Olympic medals from 2004 through 2016.

Those assignments asked different things of an announcer. Golf builds toward a stroke with long stretches of anticipation. A swimming race can turn in a few seconds. Hicks’s four-word question after Woods’s putt gave the audience a compact expression of the astonishment already on the screen.

His Olympic work included play-by-play at 15 Games, with eight swimming assignments and four in Alpine skiing, according to NBC. ESPN lists 16 Olympic assignments overall, beginning at Barcelona in 1992. The larger total includes work beyond play-by-play.

A career across sports

For golf audiences, his schedule extended through the U.S. Open, Open Championship, Ryder Cup, Presidents Cup and U.S. Women’s Open. He also became a familiar Saturday voice at Notre Dame, calling football from 2013 through 2016 and returning in 2024. This fall was his seventh season in that role, ESPN reported.

A career spanning those sports placed Hicks alongside different generations of athletes and viewers. The Woods putt and Phelps’s Beijing sweep remain an unusually vivid pairing: two defining passages of the same summer, connected by the broadcaster describing them.

Storm’s remembrance returned to the person away from the microphone. She said he made people feel that they mattered and thanked those supporting the family. Hicks is survived by Storm and their three daughters.