Former winner Henrik Stenson hits out over 'inconsistent' pace-of-play monitoring in The Open

The Swede spent longer than normal in the recording area after signing for a two-under-par 69 and revealed that it had been down to a slow-play warning he was given along with his compatriot, Sebastian Soderberg.

“It was just I spoke to Mark [Litton], who was one of the head rules officials,” said Stenson, who had got himself on the leaderboard after getting to five under for the day before dropping three shots in his last five holes. “We got a warning on the tenth green that we were three minutes out, so five minutes over the allotted time frame.

“I joked with the other guys for after the first two days, first round took about an hour over the allotted time. Second round was four to five minutes over. I said, we just have to wait until halfway through Saturday or Sunday and someone is going to come up to you and say that you're two minutes over and they're going to start pushing you on. That's exactly what happened.

“On ten today, sure enough, the first rules official came up and said that we were a couple minutes over and we had to try to close that gap. We tried really hard in the group, but then 14 took a bit of extra time. We both made bogey there.

“Then they started putting us on the clock on 15. When you're almost done, it's not really going to make a huge difference. So it was more I wanted to vent that with him. I think if you can play an hour over time scheduled in one day then, all of a sudden, two minutes is of huge importance the next day, it feels a bit inconsistent to me.”

Due to the later rounds on Thursday taking six hours to complete, the final few groups, which included Scottish pair Cameron Adam and Daniel Young, finished in near darkness.

“You just don't want to play on the clock,” added Stenson, who plays for Majesticks these days on the LIV Golf League. “I certainly don't feel like I'm a slow player these days. I's like you can take 30 seconds on one shot, 40 on another one and you might take 52 on another one and you're still kind of averaging it out, but, if you're on the clock, you're going to get noted if you take 52 on one.

“I don't think it matters how quick you are as a player, you don't want to be on the clock because, especially out here, if you miss one in the wrong place, you want to go up and check and this and that, and that clocks starts ticking. I'd prefer not to play on the clock. Yeah, we're having some discussions on that.”

Bryson DeChambeau, who showed his battling qualities by recovering from an opening 78 to make it to the weekend, was also put on the clock in the third round, in his case at the 17th. “Yeah, he timed me after I striped the drive down there, which was unfortunate” said the two-time US Open champion, who’d just got up and down from a “difficult spot” at the treacherous par-3 16th.

“Understand we were struggling with pace the whole day. I was moving my butt as fast as I could. Greens were really tricky. I was trying to read them right. Yeah, we just kept losing time.”

DeChambeau, who has talked in the past about how he likes to get to his ball as quickly as possible but then likes to be as thorough as possible over the shot, was asked if he had a solution to the slow-play issue.

“It's very simple. It's not difficult at all,” he insisted. “You eventually time everybody for their whole entire round. Nobody wants to do it because people are too scared to get exposed, which I am an advocate for. I'd love to be timed, and I have no problem with that.

“My putting, I'm more deliberate, take more time on that, but when it comes to iron shots, off the tee, I'm pretty fast. It's like D.J. (Dustin Johnson), he's really slow on the putting greens and then he's incredibly fast on his full-swing shots. Everybody plays a different style of game, and that's just the way it is. I wish it was just a new system.”