I know this column can take a while to get going. In many ways, it resembles the palaver of starting an old Austin Allegro on a frosty morning when you had to pull and push that manual choke contraption to get things clanking and spluttering into life.

If the performance of this back page was rated on the 0-to-60mph acceleration gauge, I dread to think where it would come in?

Probably lagging somewhere behind the horse-drawn boulder and Fred Dibnah’s steam traction engine. But maybe a fraction ahead of that cherished auld Allegro?

Anyway, as we’re going to be talking about slow play this week, I thought I’d make haste and get shifting up through the gears.

Golf, as we all know, can be excruciatingly slow. There are times, for instance, when it moves along with all the thrusting impetus of a tectonic plate.

Rather like an irritating stone that’s in your shoe, the pace of play issue doesn’t go away, does it? Yes, you can shake and shoogle that metaphorical stone into a little nook of your footwear for a temporary reprieve as you continue on your not so merry way but, pretty soon, the annoyance will be back, more irksome than before.

The whole topic reared its head over the last week or so on both the LPGA Tour and the DP World Tour.

Charley Hull had a deliciously draconian cure for the serial plooterers and procrastinators after her third round at the recent ANNIKA event took almost five hours and 45 minutes.

In an age when golfers embark on meticulous reconnaissance missions over each blow, seek constant reassurances from caddies on every club selection and perform lengthy pre-shot routines that resemble the elaborate courting rituals of the Blue-footed Booby bird, Hull is a veritable Speedy Gonzales.

So, what should be done, Charley? “I’m quite ruthless,” she drooled. “I say, listen, if you get three bad timings, every time it’s a two-shot penalty and if you have three of those then you lose your tour card instantly. I’m sure that would hurry a lot of people up.

“It’s ridiculous and I feel sorry for the fans for how slow it is out there.”

Hull certainly made it a week for making headlines. A couple of days after her slow play rant, she waxed lyrical about Donald Trump and gave UK Prime Minister, Sir Keir Starmer, the kind of withering assessment he’d get at a meeting of the National Farmers Union.

“I love Trump, I think he’s brilliant,” Hull cooed. “I wish he was head of the UK. He’s a little better than our Prime Minister.”

Presumably, President-elect Trump will sort out slow play on the LPGA Tour in double-quick time? Along with the PGA Tour, DP World and Saudi Public Investment Fund merger. And maybe farming inheritance tax over here? 

In the men’s game at the weekend, meanwhile, Danish rookie, Jacob Skov Olesen, was handed a one-shot, pace of play penalty at the Australian PGA Championship. It was the reigning Amateur champion’s first DP World Tour start as a pro, and he certainly won’t forget it.

Of course, some will say that was a classic case of going after an easy target. What about nabbing a star name now and then and really setting an example? We’ll see how the new campaign unfolds on that front.

Golf was never designed to be played at the frenetic tempo of a Buddy Rich drum solo. A few tranquil, leisurely hours on the course is a delightful escape from the fast lane of instant gratification that’s demanded in a fevered modern world.

Saying that, of course, there are plenty of club golfers who can easily zip round 18-holes between breakfast and brunch. The various struggles, however, to capture a younger golfing audience has been rooted, ultimately, in the perception that it takes up too much time.

The trickle-down effect of doing what the pros do can be crushingly detrimental to the game. On a commercial level, meanwhile, hours of footage of golfers endlessly mulling over this, that and the other as dust slowly forms on the lenses of the cameras hardly makes for box office viewing.

Players on the LPGA Tour have often voiced their concerns about the way the circuit is televised and promoted. When the third round of last weekend’s season-ending showpiece, the CME Group Tour Championship, was broadcast on a tape-delay instead of live, even the chairman of said CME group said it was “bulls**t”.

Funnily enough, that’s what brassed off viewers often say about rounds creeping towards the six-hour mark. With evidence of golf’s TV ratings declining across the board, a crawling pace of play does nothing to keep folk tuned in.

But let’s end on a cheery note. Whenever slow play crops up, I’m always reminded of the pleasantly absurd incident during the 2019 Latin American Amateur Championship when Mexican player Alvaro Ortiz and his group were put on the clock.

Fearing a penalty, Ortiz adopted a damn the torpedoes approach and drove off on the 13th hole as his partners were still putting out on the 12th.

He hurtled up the fairway and played his second just after his startled companions had clattered their tee-shots. At that point, a gasping official had to intervene with the hitherto unheard of instruction: “Can you please slow down.”  

It’s a funny old game.