"You are not the story; you are the observer of the story. Write the story, don't become part of the story."
Journalism 101 - first day in class, they have you write this down in your notebook. First test, this is a major portion of it. Journalism Ethics - you spend weeks going over this simple set of statements, applying it to different events.
He broke the rule; he became part of the story. He affected the results of the game. If he had suspecions on what happened, that's what the column is for - not going to the judges and recreating the observation.
There's generally a word for those in journalism who do this - outcasts. He wants to interview Tiger? Whoops, that got assigned to someone else, or perhaps Tiger isn't available for the interview. Who wants a repeat performace? What if he pulls this at the Masters - suspecion that a ball was switched and a gain of two inches is made, perhaps.
So, are you one of those people who believe a U.S. reporter shouldn't alert U.S. soldiers of a sneak attack they knew about (cf James Fallows)
Lesson for day two - forget day one.