Judge to cite without hesitation (3)
I believe the answer is:
ref
'judge' is the definition.
'cite without hesitation' is the wordplay.
'cite' becomes 'refer' (I've seen this before).
'without' suggests deleting specific letters.
'hesitation' becomes 'er'.
'refer' with 'er' taken away is 'REF'.
'to' is the link.
(Other definitions for ref that I've seen before include "Football's whistler" , "Sports official (abbrev.)" , "Football official (colloq.)" , "'Game judge, in short (3)'" , "In brief, a soccer controller" .)