Match Play Ruling

Question
A group of friends at our local course plays a Ryder cup format each year against another local course.  Each team consists of 12 players.  During individual play we had a situation as follows.

During the match, my fellow team mate hit a shot left of a green that had out of bounds all along the left.  My team mate and searched for his ball as well as our two competitors.  The guy I was playing against found his ball. It was under a bush near a small wire fence that ran along the out of bounds line.  My playing competitor ruled the ball out of bounds and raked the ball out from under the bush.  My playing partner then asked his playing competitor if where the out of bounds line was. His competitor said that the wire fence was considered the boundry.  So the ball was never out of bounds. My playing partners then took a drop and stroke after declaring an unplayable lie, although he never got to see the original lie.  We both think he could have got enough club on the ball to get it from under the bush and advance it to a better spot than he got from taking the drop.  Should he have won the hole out-right when the person I was playing moved the ball in play?

Answer
Dear Golfnut, thanks for the question...a sticky situation indeed.  There are actually two issues at hand here.  In addressing the first issue, Rule 18-3/b states clearly that if an opponent, opponent's caddy or even the opponent's equipment moves a ball, they incur an ONE-STROKE penalty themselves, subsequently possibly causing them to lose or perhaps tie the hole.  Now I'm not sure of how the strokes worked out, but when your opponent moved your teammate's ball, he should have incurred a penalty stroke himself for doing so.  Here's where the second issue falls...and its a tricky one.  If you and your teammate said nothing between the time he played the next shot (after the unplayable drop) and when you teed off the next tee, unfortunately your chance to protest would have passed.  In other words, you would have had to say something like...Hey, I'm sensing something is wrong here, so I am going to play out the round under protest until we can get a ruling...BEFORE you tee off the next hole. (or before leaving the green if its your last hole) If you continue playing under the impression that everything was within the rules without declaring a protest/claim, at that time, then the scores all are final.  Basically the burden falls on the protester to know the rules WHILE playing as opposed to using the rules against an opponent after looking something up later.  The good news is that you don't have to know the rules perfectly, but enough to state a possible claim-at the time-when you smell something fishy.  This falls under rule 2-5 if you're scoring at home.  So, as I said, it is a difficult situation and obviously he never should have touched that ball.  Nevertheless, the penalty is one stroke, not loss-of-hole, and possibly no penalty at all. Thanks again for the question, good luck and remember...

Love the game,
skipper