Rising star hit with slow play penalty on first pro start

Have the DP World Tour started how they mean to go on?

The 2025 season is officially under way this week at the BMW Australian PGA Championship and we already have our first penalty for slow play.

The perennial debate about dithering players has come into sharp focus again after Charley Hull came down hard on the offenders who she believes are damaging the fan experience.

Hull even claimed LPGA players who receive multiple “bad time” warnings should get their tour cards stripped from them.

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Of course, that extreme punishment isn’t exactly realistic, but one rising star did have his scorecard hit after taking an age to play his shot during the first round of the season Down Under.

What a baptism of fire this was for DP World Tour qualifier Jacob Skov Olesen.

The Danish left-hander was making his first pro start this week in after comfortably progressing through the marathon Q School in Spain.

And he felt the full force of the rulebook as he was struck with a one-shot penalty on the 10th hole. Olesen was clocked at 130 seconds when first to play his approach into the par-4.

A par four became a bogey five and the 25-year-old’s two-over 73 became a 74.

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The DP World Tour’s tournament committee have long been attempting to clamp down on slow play with more stringent punishments. Pablo Larrazabal, however, accused up to 20 players on the circuit of “cheating” by knowingly breaking Pace of Play policies in an interview with bunkered.co.uk last year.

Olesen, of course, will learn from his mistake.

The 2024 Amateur Champion has huge potential and comes with some expectation on his first season on tour. He had to make the tough decision to turn down a start at the 2025 Masters after turning pro to compete full-time on Europe’s premier circuit.

“Ever since I was a kid and watched tournaments for the first time, I dreamed of going [to Augusta National],” he told Golf Digest’s Evin Priest. “But it’s the same with the DP World Tour, it’s a childhood dream to play out here as well. I was a little older for an amateur, [compared] to most.

“I think it would have been a different, different situation and decision if I was 20. Being 25, I felt like I wanted to get going and it’s hard to turn down a DP World Tour card.

“It’s not like [it has to be a once] in a lifetime opportunity. I have to put faith in myself and my team that one day we’ll get there through the professional route, which probably even more fun.”

Ben Parsons joined bunkered as a Content Producer in 2023 and is the man to come to for all of the latest news, across both the professional and amateur games. Formerly of The Mirror and Press Association, he is a member at Halifax Golf Club and is a long-suffering fan of both Manchester United and the Wales rugby team.