The voice that called 27 Tiger Woods victories and Michael Phelps’ eight gold medals in Beijing has gone quiet.
Dan Hicks, the NBC Sports announcer who served as the network’s voice of golf, Olympic swimming and Notre Dame football across a 35-year career, died late Wednesday, Nov. 11, 2026, in Connecticut. He was 64. His wife, ESPN anchor Hannah Storm, said he died following an acute illness, and his family and NBC announced the death Thursday, Nov. 12.
“Our family is heartbroken by the sudden and unexpected passing of Dan following an acute illness,” Storm wrote in a post on X. Storm, who was married to Hicks for more than 30 years, said their three daughters — Hannah, Ellery and Riley — were heartbroken, and she thanked those surrounding the family with support.
Hicks was born in Tucson, Ariz., and graduated from the University of Arizona. He started in local television and radio, joined CNN in 1989 and moved to NBC in 1992. From 1995 to 1999 he worked as a tower announcer on golf telecasts before taking over the lead chair in 2000, a job he held for 26 years. He won a Sports Emmy.
The Voice Behind Tiger’s U.S. Open Wins
Golf was his favorite sport. Hicks was on the call for 27 tournament victories by Woods, including three at the U.S. Open. One of the most memorable came at the 2008 U.S. Open, when Woods beat Rocco Mediate in an 18-hole Monday playoff. For nearly two decades, Hicks worked alongside analyst Johnny Miller.
The résumé ran deep: 27 U.S. Opens, 23 U.S. Women’s Opens, the Ryder Cup, the Presidents Cup, The Open Championship, The Players Championship and the FedExCup Playoffs.
The PGA Tour said it was devastated by the sudden loss, and that Hicks’ narration of more than 25 years of broadcasts became part of how fans remember the game. United States Golf Association CEO Mike Whan said Hicks was a friend to the sport and to the association, and a man whose generosity reached everyone who knew him. Roger Maltbie, a longtime colleague on NBC’s golf broadcasts, told Golf Channel the news was brutal, and that what he had lost was not a co-worker but a pal.
Counting Phelps’ Golds With Rowdy Gaines
Hicks covered 16 Olympics, 15 of them as a play-by-play announcer, beginning with the 1992 Barcelona Games. He called swimming eight times with analyst Rowdy Gaines, and the pair chronicled Phelps’ eight gold medals at the 2008 Beijing Games and Katie Ledecky’s 14 medals across four Olympics from 2012 to 2024. At the Milan Cortina Games in 2026, he handled Alpine skiing. He also called NFL games for NBC from 1992 to 1998 and worked the network’s NBA coverage in the 1990s.
NBC Sports executives Rick Cordella, Sam Flood and Molly Solomon said in a joint statement that Hicks spent 34 years at the network telling stories and calling events that defined eras of sports, and that his knowledge and humor entertained viewers for decades. They wrote that teammates were greeted with a smile, a joke or a word of encouragement, and sent their love to Storm and the couple’s daughters.
The Game He Was Scheduled to Call
This was Hicks’ seventh season on Notre Dame football. He called the Fighting Irish from 2013 to 2016, then returned to the assignment in 2024. He was scheduled to be in the booth Saturday, Nov. 14, when Notre Dame plays Boston College.
Tributes came from across the industry. ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro said his network was deeply saddened and that its thoughts were with Storm, the couple’s three daughters and Hicks’ colleagues at NBC. Versant CEO Mark Lazarus said he had worked beside Hicks for decades and that the friendship reached well past the workplace. CBS Sports chairman Sean McManus said Hicks had a hand in many of the defining sports events of the past 30 years, and that no one would find a better husband, father or friend.
ESPN’s morning program “Get Up” aired a tribute to Hicks on Thursday, Nov. 12.
Golf Channel’s Rich Lerner told viewers that when he sat down to write about the man he had worked around for years, nothing would come, and that he could not make himself accept the finality of it. “Dan was 64 going on 44,” Lerner said.