Dan Hicks waited. The 12-footer wobbled on Torrey Pines’ Poa annua that had been roughed up over the past week of U.S. Open play, to the point where it seemed its trajectory was in doubt. But Hicks knew what we didn’t, which is why when that ball ultimately disappeared and Tiger Woods pumped to the crowds and sky on one leg, Hicks waited a beat before crooning three words that would last forever.
It’s the most famous call of his famous career, those words now enshrined on a plaque next to Torrey’s 18th green. Hicks often joked that his buddies would repeat the phrase whenever he missed a putt in their games together. But on this sad day, where Hicks has died at 64 due to an acute illness, listen to the call from 2008 again. Hicks didn’t explain the “what” we had just witnessed or reach for a grand declaration. He simply turned to us at home and asked, “Expect anything different?” then gave the moment back to Woods.
Hicks always understood his job, which was to get out of the way.
Announcers are part of the soundtrack of sports. The best have a way of connecting with what’s going on in the fields of play and become artists in their own way. There’s ego involved, because play-by-play announcers want to be heard. Unfortunately, depending on who is behind the mic, that can make fans reach to turn the volume down. Golf is a special kind of animal. Broadcasts can stretch for six hours, with long spells where nothing of consequence is happening. Fans are settling in, and they want decent company along with it. The voices and personalities of the broadcast become family, and like any good family dynamic, that requires a conductor of a symphony, or better yet a point guard, to lead them. Someone who can see what everyone else cannot, and gets the ball to the person who should have it.
For almost two decades together, that person during NBC golf broadcasts was Johnny Miller. Johnny was dangerous. He had no aversion to saying what everyone watching at home was thinking, and that made for entertainment. But it also required a specific skillset next to him. Most play-by-play guys would fight for oxygen, which could end up dulling the edges of the Miller buzzsaw. Or worse, overreacting to every grenade Johnny casually threw, because that would turn the broadcast into a caricature of itself.
Hicks did neither. He joked that his job was to give “your horse room to run.” Hicks wanted us to hear Miller. And it wasn’t just Johnny spouting off. Miller said the things he said because Hicks asked the right questions, and just importantly knew when not to say anything at all or to rein Miller in when he started to go sideways. That made for a better and more informed broadcast, and frankly just an enjoyable time. There’s a reason they were the longest 18th-hole tower pairing in golf TV history. All while weaving in talented voices like Roger Maltbie, Gary Koch and David Feherty, making sure they could be heard too.
It worked, and it is really, really hard to make that job work.
When Miller retired in 2019, NBC brought in Paul Azinger, perhaps the closest avatar to Miller’s penchant for not suffering fools. Hicks and Azinger worked together for five years, and it says a lot about Hicks the man that in Azinger’s parting statement he thanked Hicks first. Over the last three years the seat next to Hicks has had a rotating cast, sometimes with seasoned TV vets and others who were learning on the job. Whatever you think of NBC’s broadcast, Hicks proved his worth. Any point guard can feed a star, but a good one keeps passing to the new guy until the new guy realizes he belongs.
The same instincts traveled with him to other sports. At the Olympics he called swimming beside Rowdy Gaines, letting his partner rise out of the seat as the wall became closer. Hicks called skiers racing down mountains and skaters speeding in circles. He had two stints working Notre Dame Football, including a game he was supposed to call this Saturday. Hicks was the professional any network could have trusted with any event. He could have done anything. Golf was what kept him coming back, and the sport is better for it.
In his passing, everyone who worked with Hicks gravitated towards the person that he was. What we saw on TV was the real deal. Generous, humble, doing whatever he could to help. A story that embodies that was Hicks at the 2025 U.S. Open. NBC brought Miller back because the national championship was at Oakmont, the site of his record Sunday 63 back in 1973. Don’t think we are speaking out of school to say that Miller was dealing with the pangs of growing older. Hicks treated Miller with a type of grace that can’t be feigned. He signed off their segment together as “Partner for life.”
Hicks made the hard look so routine that it was easy to miss. As soon as the news of his death reached the masses, the Torrey-Tiger clip became omnipresent on social media. Just for a moment, Hicks had the spotlight, and he didn’t make it about him. That’s what made Dan Hicks great.