Kevin Kisner named NBC Sports lead analyst after yearlong search

NBC Sports has a new lead voice, and his name is Kevin Kisner.

After a yearlong search, NBC announced Wednesday that Kisner will become the new lead analyst of its golf coverage, ending the revolving door in the lead booth following Paul Azinger’s departure in December 2023.

Kisner, an 18-year PGA Tour pro, will keep limited PGA Tour playing privileges as part of the agreement, allowing him the freedom to play out the remainder of his Tour eligibility while still completing a full-time broadcast schedule. According to an NBC press release, the agreement will see Kisner in the booth for NBC Sports’ coverage of the U.S. Open, Open Championship and Ryder Cup in 2025.

Kisner appeared to be NBC’s preferred choice for the lead role since at least February, when he stepped into the booth for a handful of well-received stints in the lead chair at the Sentry, WM Phoenix Open and Players Championship. The question, it seemed, centered around if Kisner wanted to hand over the final days of his professional playing career to take the job.

The longtime pro told The Hot Mic in January that he had “no plans” to retire for a golf TV job, but acknowledged that the realities of pro golf might eventually push him in that direction. In April, he told The Loop podcast that after further reflection, he’d decided he wasn’t ready to leave pro golf.

“I haven’t played well in two years, and I don’t really want to go out like that, to be honest with you,” Kisner said. “I feel like I can still compete with the guys if I’m playing well, which I haven’t played what I consider well yet. So it’s kind of a test to myself to see, how hard can you work to figure it out?”

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Kisner’s indecision appeared to put NBC in a bind. The network parted ways with Azinger acrimoniously just months earlier after five up-and-down years, and (perhaps smartly) wanted to avoid rushing to name a replacement. As such, NBC waited until May to announce Brandel Chamblee as lead analyst for its biggest broadcast of 2024, the U.S. Open, and Luke Donald for its second-biggest broadcast, the Open Championship. As part of those announcements, NBC said it would spend the remainder of 2024 experimenting with a series of lead voices under a new “odd-even” telecast structure. Based on the hole number, the new structure would alternate broadcasting duties between two sets of analysts and play-by-play broadcasters.

NBC Sports executive producer and head of golf production Sam Flood said then that the network could — and likely would — wait until the offseason to hire a full-time voice.

“I think if we find the right person [we’ll hire someone full-time],” Flood said. “But right now, we think for the audience, they’re benefiting by hearing all this different perspective. And it’s kind of fun every week to figure out who’s going to be on and how it all meshes together. For the rest of this year, we’ve got this going on — but who knows what’s going to happen next year?”

With Wednesday’s announcement, Kisner becomes just the third full-time lead analyst for NBC since the Clinton Administration, stepping into a role long dominated by major championship winners (which Kisner is not). Rather, the 40-year-old pro and four-time PGA Tour winner will look to define the next generation of golf broadcasters, leaning on his well-regarded sense of humor, relationships with pro golfers and familiarity with social media to ingratiate himself to a new generation of golf fans.

By keeping his PGA Tour privileges, Kisner could theoretically change his broadcasting schedule considerably with a victory. But playing in events could also allow Kisner to serve a role similar to longtime CBS Sports analyst Gary McCord, who spent the formative years of his broadcast career pitching into CBS telecasts on weekends following missed cuts.

“If I won next week, I’d probably be like, ‘alright, I might be done.’” Kisner said in April. “I just want to prove to myself that I’m not going out like this.”

According to the press release, Kisner will slide next to longtime NBC Sports play-by-play voice Dan Hicks in the lead chair in 2025. Over the summer, Flood expressed his desire to bring back Hicks, who was on an expiring contract in 2024. Now, it seems, Hicks is back in the play-by-play chair, and with a new partner to boot.