Are you expecting something different?
You’re damn right we did.
From John Daniel Hicks, native son of Tucson, we waited and waited for many more years and many more calls.
More Players Championships, where he masterfully set the stage for the gut checks of the Stadium Course on Sunday afternoon.
More US Opens, where to Oakmont two years ago everything that stood in between JJ Spaun and his first major title was a two-putt from 64 feet. “There’s no need to make … just comfortable … two putts,” said Hicks, dapper as ever in a gray suit vest and teal tie. When Spaun needed a single pass, Hicks leaned against his desk and yelled, “How… ah-BOUT…. ONE!”
more downhill skiing; more Notre Dame football (he was slated to call the Boston College game on Saturday); plus Olympic swimming, the sport that produced one of Hicks’ all-time bests, at the 2008 Games in Beijing. When American swimmer Jason Lezak entered the final leg of the 400-meter relay to overtake legendary French swimmer Alain Bernard and win gold for the Americans, Hicks, like millions watching around the globe, could not contain himself:
Can the veteran take him down and pull off a shock here?…Bernard is losing some ground! Here comes Lezak! Amazing at the end! He did it! The United States did it!
We expected so many more calls Hicks, because. . . well, why don’t we? Like Nantz and Tirico and Eagle and Breen and Buck, Hicks was not only a comforting and authoritative voice, but also a permanent one, as if it had always been there and always would be. He was also young, both in appearance and energy.
When the news of his death came out Thursday morning, if you were a sports fan and especially a golf fan, it took your breath away. It is difficult for the news to do this in 2026, but this announcement did – Dan Hicks, died at 64 – via a post on social media from Hicks’ wife of 32 years, ESPN anchor Hannah Storm.
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“Our family is heartbroken by Dan’s sudden and unexpected passing,” Storm wrote. She and Hicks met in 1989 while working on the sports desk at CNN. Within a year they were dating. Within five years they were caught. Until settling in Greenwich, Conn. They had three girls, Hannah, Ellery and Riley. Last month, Hicks was in Illinois to root for Riley in the Chicago Marathon. Not long ago he was in Long Island, playing the Avett Brothers and Willie Nelson at the Jones Beach Theater. He played his golf Winged foot. Life was good.
“When he walked into a room, he brought energy, laughter and people together,” Storm continued in his statement. “He was endlessly kind, thoughtful and funny, and he made everyone feel like they mattered.”
I don’t know Hicks, but I interviewed him in 2011 for an ongoing (and short-lived) podcast I hosted. He was gracious with his time and insights, but the best lens I took in his reflection came years later, when he passed through our office in New York City. I can’t remember why he was there, but when he came back, he greeted me like an old friend and thanked me for having him on the podium, as if I had done him a favor and not the other way around.
Which was Hicks, according to the avalanche of memories Thursday. Hot. Inclusive. More interested in promoting others than himself, which is what you want from a leading advertiser. Tee it up and get out of the way. Let Johnny, Zinger, Kiz, whoever, shine. “A great quarterback, a point guard,” Hicks’ longtime NBC colleague Roger Maltbie told AP golf writer Doug Ferguson. “If you listen to his broadcast, for me he was great to pass the ball. He always had a question. He always engaged you. It’s a big part of the job.”
Storytelling is also the kind that reveals something about golfers that their scorecards and club selections cannot. As Spaun — a player with whom many drive-by golf fans would be unfamiliar — shot a 72nd hole at Oakmont in 2025, Hicks referred to Spaun’s opening 66 that week and how in years past such a hot start in a major would have left Spaun spooked.
“This is kind of a psychological breakthrough that JJ Spaun has done,” Hicks said, as the broadcast cut to a shot of Spaun’s family. “And you have that support system. There’s his wife, Melody. He has his two girls there, Emerson and Violet.”
Then came the installation, the baton passing.
“We’ve alluded to it before, Kiz. You had a bit of a heart-to-heart with JJ Spaun earlier in his career, he said he was fighting too much…”
That led Kisner to share a story about how he helped encourage Spaun with a locker-room pep talk. Moments later, with that context still fresh in viewers’ minds, Spaun buried one of the most dramatic putts in US Open history.
“I always remind myself, and I remind the young broadcasters coming up, you’ve got to get the people that the audience is watching, you’ve got to get them to care about those people,” Hicks said in a recent podcast appearance. according to the LA Times. “And how do you do this? You have to tell some personal stories. You have to present the audience, who is this person? Why are they here? What was their journey like to get there? And so, if you use that element, the numbers game does not matter. If you care about someone, then you are invested in the telecast.”
Hicks took care of you. At Bay Hill and Sawgrass. In the bear trap and the snake pit. At our Open and U open Some Sundays are less memorable than others, some winning moments less rich than others. But sometimes, some glorious sometimes, it all comes together in a script that would make you laugh out of Hollywood.
For Hicks, that moment came at the 2008 US Open at Torrey Pines. No setup is needed here, because the sequence is burned into the collective memory bank of the golf world: Tigre on a broken leg, looking at a 15-footer to force a playoff with Rocco Mediate.
Two strokes after the putt disappeared, with Woods still exalting with clenched fists, Hicks caught the mood with three perfect words.
“Are you expecting something different?”
Of Tiger, no, and the same could be said of Hicks.