PORTRUSH, Northern Ireland — The footage was instantly hilarious when it came out on social media Friday at the British Open: NBC’s Dan Hicks and Kevin Kisner minding their own business in the TV booth, when suddenly, a bat flying above them unleashed total chaos. Hicks pawed at the air, Kisner slowly slunk to the ground and covered himself with his jacket, and television magic was born. Watch it here:
There’s a bat in the booth! pic.twitter.com/IljrVpH5OA
— Kyle Porter (@KylePorterNS) July 18, 2025
Saturday morning, with a night’s sleep behind him, Kisner agreed to speak for the first time about the dramatic encounter, and the reaction that followed. What follows is a lightly edited version of our conversation.
Digest: To start with, just take me through where you were and what was happening … where did this thing come from?
Kisner: I have no idea. We were all just in our positions as usual, and suddenly I see a bird flapping around our heads. We were doing even holes, and Brad Faxon and Terry Gannon were doing odd holes, and this wasn’t our hole, so Dan and I weren’t talking at the time, thank goodness. And I see this thing circling all four of our heads multiple times, and Dan whispers to me, “I think it’s a bat.”
And I looked up, and I’m like, “holy cow, that is a bat.” And it happened right when it got really dark yesterday, so I think the bat was probably already in the booth, and he woke up because he thought it was nighttime and was looking around.
And, yeah, a little bit of panic happened. Dan starts swinging at it rapidly, and I’m like, “I’m out,” because if it catches you, you’ve got to get all these rabies shots. So I just start hiding under the desk, and it’s not a great look on camera. But I wish they would’ve gotten the bat actually flying around on the video so we didn’t look so silly.
Digest: I was going to say, though, between the two reactions, I felt you were almost admirably calm. Just a kind of, “I’m going to slowly get out of here” reaction. I thought maybe you came off a little better.
Kisner: I did too. But I thought I was getting the most flack. Everybody calling me this avid outdoorsman that’s hiding from a bat, and I’m like, “Well, do you know what a bat does to you? A bat gives you rabies and you die.” So, I’m out.
I feel like it was showing how much more I knew about the situation than everyone else. But I guess some people didn’t see it that way.
🚨BAT ALERT – A bat briefly infiltrated the @NBCSports broadcast booth at #TheOpen
"This bat did 20 laps around this tower…the great outdoorsman, Kevin Kisner, hiding under the set." – @DanHicksNBC
"I saw his feet up looking to land…I was ducking out." – @K_Kisner pic.twitter.com/cmIMH6iMYa
— Golf Channel PR (@GolfChannelPR) July 18, 2025
Digest: Well hopefully we’ll correct the record a little bit here. How big is the space in there, and where is it exactly? Is it by 18?
Kisner: This week we’re actually over by the beach on the other course at Portrush, so we’re not really close. We’re right on the water, with a backdrop to the ocean, and the booth’s fairly large this week, probably 20 [feet] by 40, which is bigger than normal. And we had a total fire drill in there when the bat took flight, I promise you that. It’s not just the four of us in there. There’s multiple people, maybe 15 of us, and everyone’s ducking and diving. And our guy George [Acker, who manages the broadcast booth], he’s running around and chasing after it with a towel, like he was going to whack it with the towel.
Digest: How did Faxon and Gannon react?
Kisner: That’s my favorite part, Brad never saw the bat or knew what was going on and just continued on like the professional that he is. And I don’t think Terry noticed it either, but they saw Dan flailing his arms and me hiding under the desk. And we went to commercial pretty soon after, and as soon as we did, they said, “What were y’all doing over there?”
And I meant to check in on “Live From …” last night, because they showed up and they had all kinds of nests, like they were going to make fun of us.
Digest: Incredible. Do you have any previous experiences with bats?
Kisner: The last experience, we go to the mountains of North Carolina in the summer, and when we came home after being gone for a couple months, my wife walked in the house and there was a bat on the drapes in the middle of the day. He was just hung up asleep, and she went in a full panic. Made every child run out of the house and stand outside, made me call my buddy that’s a pest-control guy, and they sent a bat guy over. It was a whole experience. So maybe I had a little PTSD from BatGate.
Digest: What about animals generally? Ever had a dangerous encounter?
Kisner: Not any that can kill me. Most of the time I’m trying to kill them. But getting eight yards away from an 800-pound bugling elk with giant horns is fascinating.
Digest: What happened to the bat?
Kisner: If I’m completely honest, from my experience as an outdoorsman, that bat’s still in there, very alive and very well.
Digest: So we could see the whole thing again?
Kisner: Possibly. The interior walls are black in the booth to drown out the light, the ceilings are 20 feet high, so he could still be in the top of that thing, and who knows, maybe he slipped in, they can slip in and out of a tiny crack. We’re hoping he slipped out and flew far away.
Digest: How have you found the social media reaction?
Kisner: I think it’s hilarious. My favorite by far, obviously you’ve seen the viral Coldplay video, and you know, some people on social media make me die laughing, someone sent a meme of that situation where the male in that video ducks down? And put it right up against me, ducking under the booth and Dan looking down at me, and it was absolutely fantastic. It was so good that I showed Dan while we were on air, and we both had to hold our mute buttons for about 30 seconds, dying laughing, so that none of our laughter got on the air.
— Shane Ryan (@ShaneRyanHere) July 18, 2025
Digest: I don’t want to pat myself on the back here, but that was actually me.
Kisner: That’s fantastic. Somebody sent me the pictures, and I literally died laughing on the booth while on air.
Digest: Any friends or family send you any funny texts?
Kisner: Oh yeah, I mean all the text messages, I had to phone up because we’re on a live broadcast and my phone’s just buzzing the entire time. Even our president of NBC [Rick Cordella] sent me something. So hopefully today is less adventurous.
Digest: Last one for you, give me your thoughts on Dan’s reaction? I thought it looked like a cat batting at a ball of yarn or something.
Kisner: One person described it to us on text as karate chops, and I said, “quite the contrary, it looked more like slaps to me.” Like panic slaps. It was quite hilarious. There was a description I told Dan that’s probably not suitable for the mass audience, but his face and his reaction was hilarious to me. He wasn’t even extending his arms. It looked like a little doggie paddle slapping the whole time.
Digest: Anything else before we let you go?
Kisner: Just that was an awesome way to break up the day, and hopefully we have no more bats today. That was enough of a bad experience for me in the booth for my whole career
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Is it the British Open or the Open Championship? The name of the final men’s major of the golf season is a subject of continued discussion. The event’s official name, as explained in this op-ed by former R&A chairman Ian Pattinson, is the Open Championship. But since many United States golf fans continue to refer to it as the British Open, and search news around the event accordingly, Golf Digest continues to utilize both names in its coverage.
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This article was originally published on golfdigest.com
