The world’s top golf organizations are set to take on a distasteful problem plaguing the game. And it has nothing to do with a shirtless John Daly swinging a club.

The issue is slow play. As in mind-bogglingly ss-ll-oo-ww.

Tournament golf has turned into a seemingly endless march to Snoozeville. The four-hour round is becoming as rare as the double eagle.

At the Masters, the final pairing of Trevor Immelman and Brandt Snedeker took 5 hours 10 minutes. Sure, the wind was blowing, Augusta’s greens are tough and there was much at stake.

But more than five hours for a twosome? That’s almost like tuning in a doubleheader.

The Players Championship would have been much more exciting if the last group of Paul Goydos and Kenny Perry had come in under 4:45. Add the one-hole playoff, and that was another five-hour-plus viewing experience.

And don’t even get into the snail’s pace on Thursdays and Fridays, when tournaments try to squeeze 156 players around the course. It’s not unusual to see two groups on the tee on the par-3 sixth at Cog Hill with another group on the green.

Hey, here’s your chance to watch Tiger Woods sit on a bench for 20 minutes.

Speaking of Woods, he is at the forefront of players who want to speed up the game. Woods addressed his concern in a recent newsletter (that’s how athletes communicate these days).

“It’s been an ongoing problem on the PGA Tour for a long time,” he wrote. “It has been suggested offenders be penalized with strokes. The problem is, you may get one guy who slows down a group for playing at a snail’s pace and gets them all put on the clock, which isn’t fair. I know this is a complicated issue. Hopefully, it can be addressed in the near future.”

The future is now.

Peter Dawson, executive director of the R & A, the governing body in Europe, is among golf’s top executives leading the charge to eliminate slow play.

“It certainly needs something done about it, not just for the running of these events but for the effect it has on grass-roots play,” Dawson said. “We do see people copying the stars, and I think it has had an effect on the pace of play.”

J.B. Holmes gets to the point of his deliberate play.

“You’re playing for $1 million,” Holmes said. “If someone thinks I’m slow or taking too long, I don’t care.”

Holmes should care. That $1 million depends on television. Ratings already are sagging, and slow, boring play won’t help.

There seems to be only one solution: Penalize players.

The LPGA has done it for the last couple of years, and players seem to be getting the message. Earlier this year, Angela Park was assessed a two-shot penalty for slow play and wound up losing by three.

Gee, what a concept. If players are threatened with losing strokes, you can bet they will speed up.