Golf:England's Andrew Willey was the last player penalised for slow play in the Open, picking up a one-shot penalty at Troon in 2004 which contributed to rounds of 80 and 76 and making him comfortably miss the halfway cut. But other such as America's notoriously sluggish Kevin Na could be in trouble this week.

Players at Royal Lytham have been allotted four and a half hours to complete their opening two rounds in threeballs and three hours and 45 minutes if in groups of two on Saturday and Sunday.

Jim McArthur, chairman of the R&A’s championship committee, insisted action would be taken even if it was at a decisive stage of the tournament, adding:

“We have emphasised to the players that we are applying the policy stringently and we have instructed the walking rules officials to take whatever action they feel is appropriate to ensure that these time schedules are met.

“This year the championship committee are putting slow play as priority. At the Amateur Championship we applied the policy very stringently \[English teenager Nathan Kimsey was penalised during qualifying] and we will do the same at the Boys Championship.

“We give each group a time schedule for each hole, and we monitor that very stringently. If a group is out of position with the game in front or over the time schedule, we initially start with words of encouragement to communicate with them and tell them that they are over the schedule or out of position.

“Thereafter if they don’t respond to that, we then put them on to the clock and deal with them that way. We’ve obviously got to take into account the weather conditions and other mitigating circumstances, but we would have no hesitation if we felt the players were over time to take the appropriate action.”

Slow play hit the headlines earlier this season when Ryder Cup player Ross Fisher was given a one-shot penalty during the final round of the Wales Open, when he was one stroke off the lead with four holes to play.

Fisher, who subsequently finished just two shots behind winner Thongchai Jaidee, was playing alongside Jaidee and Joost Luiten but was singled out for punishment because of taking too long to play shots at the 11th and 14th holes, long after the group had been told to speed up.

The last occasion a final group got in trouble is thought to have been the 1981 PGA Championship at Ganton; winner Nick Faldo and Greg Norman were fined #50 and Ken Brown #150.

It is 17 years since a player was given a stroke penalty for slow play in a regular PGA Tour event in America. Glen Day was the player and he was given the nickname “All Day”.

At the USPGA Championship two years ago, however, France’s Gregory Bourdy was penalised and the European Tour also gave a shot penalty to local player Filip Mzurek at last season’s Czech Open.

Earlier this season, the LPGA Tour had its own controversy when Solheim Cup player Morgan Pressel lost a hole in a match play semi-final because of slow play and subsequently went out of the event.