[Challenger]

Originally Posted by Dr Winston O Boogie jr

Actually, how it was detected does not matter.

Once the officials are made aware of a violation, they have a responsibility to the rest of the field to investigate it and if there is a violation, to correctly apply the rules regardless of the source of the information.

There's a big difference between watching a television program and wire tapping. Golfers playing in a tournament are in the public domain. Reporting their actions is way different than wire tapping a private phone line. If you saw a bank being robbed and reported it to the police, would you be violating the bank robber's rights? Should the police consider that they didn't see the event themselves?

If you know that someone was cheating on their income tax and reported it to the IRS shouldn't the IRS investigate or should they do nothing because of how it was detected.?

In this particular case, under the current rules, the ruling was 100% correct. Once the officials have the information regardless of how it was obtained they must act according to the rules.