Dan Hicks Facts: 20 Things You Didn't Know About The NBC Sports Golf Host

Dan Hicks has been a familiar presence on the NBC Sports broadcast team for over three decades. Here's what we know about the long-standing host of NBC Sports' golf coverage.

1. Dan Hicks was born in Tucson on 2 June 1962.

2. Even from an early age, Hicks had ambitions to work for NBC Sports. His mother, Diane, told the student newspaper serving the University of Arizona, The Daily Wildcat: “When he was a little bitty boy, he would say, ‘I’m going to have an NBC Sports job.”

3. Hicks grew up playing basketball, baseball and football, but not golf. He only picked up the game after injuring his knee playing basketball.

4. Nowadays he is a six handicapper at the game.

5. On the KFFN Spears and Ali podcast, he said the three people he would most love to play golf with are Frank Sinatra, Ben Hogan and Arnold Palmer. 

6. In the late 1970s, Hicks would take a tape recorder to Tucson Toros minor league baseball games and call the play-by-play as a learning mechanism.

7. He majored in journalism at the University of Arizona in 1984.

8. While at the university, he performed public address duties for women’s volleyball games.

9. He later became the PA announcer in the Arizona Stadium press box.

10. After beginning his career in radio, he took on the sports anchor role at KVOA in his home city.

11. His first night in the hotseat went badly, though – the teleprompter failed within seconds of going on air, leaving Hicks to improvise.

12. In 1989, he became a sports reporter for CNN in Atlanta.

13. Three years later, he joined NBC Sports, where he has been since.

14. He called his first US Open at Shinnecock in 1992.

15. He has been the lead play-by-play host for NBC’s golf coverage since 2000.

16. He is married to ESPN SportsCenter anchor Hannah Storm.

17. The couple have three daughters - Hannah, Ellery and Riley.

18. One of Hicks’ ambitions is to do the play-by-play for the Super Bowl.

19. As well as golf, Hicks has also covered the NBC’s Olympics coverage, Notre Dame football coverage and the network’s NFL Wild Card Weekend coverage.

20. In 2023, he was inducted into the Pima County Sports Hall of Fame in Arizona.