Judge to cite without hesitation (3)
I believe the answer is:
ref
'judge' is the definition.
(referee)
'cite without hesitation' is the wordplay.
'cite' becomes 'refer' (I've seen this before).
'without' is a deletion indicator.
'hesitation' becomes 'er' (sound made while hesitating - um, er).
'refer' with 'er' taken away is 'REF'.
'to' acts as a 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" .)