America at Large: In 1925, at the Worcester Country Club, Bobby Jones famously cost himself a chance to win the US Open with a self-imposed penalty when he saw his ball move in the rough after he had addressed it.

The movement was almost imperceptible, and no one else had seen the infraction. Commended for his honesty, Jones replied: "You might as well praise a man for not robbing a bank."

Following a rain delay in Jakarta last March, Colin Montgomerie clearly improved what had been an awkward stance with what was later shown to have been an illegal drop, but escaped prosecution on the grounds that his actions had been blessed by an on-site rules official.

Last Sunday, in Palm Desert, California, young Michelle Wie briefly believed she had finished fourth in her first professional outing, but she was subsequently disqualified from the Samsung World Championship for having taken an illegal drop the previous afternoon.

Beyond the fact that the eyes of the golfing world were riveted on the Hawaiian teenager, the episode became all the more noteworthy because it wasn't a fellow competitor or even a spectator who ratted Wie out to the rules committee. It was a sportswriter.

The journalist's credo holds that one is supposed to report the news, not make it, but then Michael Bamberger isn't your ordinary journalist. In golfing matters he is uniquely qualified, having spent a year as a caddie on the European Tour (primarily on the bag of the eccentric vagabond American pro Peter Teravainen), an experience he would later chronicle in a terrific book, To the Linksland.

Bamberger had been assigned to follow Wie throughout last weekend's proceedings at Bighorn, and as a result he was less than six feet away when the offence occurred.

The Panahou High School honour student had turned 16 on the previous Tuesday, and had celebrated her eligibility for a driving licence by renouncing her amateur status, a decision which immediately earned her upwards of $10 million in endorsement deals.

She battled with the leaders throughout the tournament, but the episode on the seventh hole in the penultimate round proved her undoing. She hooked her drive into a bush and, after announcing to playing partner Grace Park that she was declaring the ball unplayable, took a penalty drop, albeit one Bamberger reckoned to have been "a full pace" nearer to the hole.

Bamberger said he didn't believe Wie had intentionally cheated.

"I just think she was being hasty," he said, noting that her group was already in danger of being put on the clock for slow play.

At the time Bamberger was still wearing his reporter's hat, so he kept his counsel and waited to approach Wie privately after her round. She expressed confidence that her drop had been within the rules, but the scribe wasn't so sure. During Sunday's play he mentioned the matter to a member of the rules committee, who agreed to review the matter with Wie.

Over the past decade there have been numerous instances of television viewers telephoning in to report rules infractions, and the usual practice is for tournament officials to review the television footage.

LPGA rules official Robert O Smith admitted afterward that had he had to make a decision based on the videotape, the evidence would not have been sufficiently conclusive to make a ruling, but after Wie finished her round and signed her scorecard, he invited her and caddie Greg Johnston to accompany him to the scene of the crime. Once they showed him where the ball had initially been and whence she had played her next shot, it became apparent that the drop had been at least "12 to 15 inches" nearer to the hole, and hence illegal.

Had Wie assessed herself an additional two strokes for the infraction before signing her card on Saturday, she'd have cost herself some money, but she wouldn't have been disqualified, but by signing for a score to which she was not entitled, she got the boot for violating Rule 6, making her first professional outing one she is unlikely to forget.

Despite the subsequent outcry, this is hardly the first time a sportswriter has sicced the rules dogs on a player after spotting a violation. (I've done it myself on at least two occasions, with Vijay Singh the perceived culprit both times, but the officials in question proved as accommodating to the player as the folks in Jakarta were to Monty.)

"Adherence to the rules is the underlying value of the game," said Bamberger. "To stand in silence when you see an infraction is an infraction itself."

I'm not sure I'd want to sound that high and mighty, but if he thinks he has spotted a rule being bent, a reporter at the very least has a clear obligation to his readers to find out why the player was allowed to get away with it.

Although she was in tears afterward, Wie didn't blame Bamberger for exposing her mistake, and admitted that she should have covered her backside.

"I learned my lesson," she said. "Whether it's three inches or a hundred yards, I'm going to call a rules official every single time."

And when he ran into the scribe in the press tent after his daughter's disqualification, BJ Wie, the player's father, offered his hand and said, simply, "Good job, Michael."

The one person in the Wie party who did fault Bamberger was her caddie. In a week in which her net wealth had increased by $10 million, Wie probably wouldn't miss the $53,126 fourth-place money, but Johnston, out five grand, had to be physically restrained from coming after the reporter. It was a reaction that Bamby, the former caddie, understood all too well.