While Whiteford was looking ahead at the green, and with his club in the air and also unbeknown to the Scot, his ball rolled albeit slightly to the right.

In fairness to the quitely spoken Scot he sought confirmation from his caddy, fellow competitor Jean Baptiste Gonnet along with a TV cameraman as to whether they had observed his ball moving.

All three indicated they had not seen Whiteford's ball move and so he continued on to finish the hole and sign his scorecard for a level par 72.

But overnight several TV viewers contacted the European Tour website indicating  Whiteford’s ball had in fact moved on the 18th hole.

This was reviewed by the Rules Committee who agreed with those views.

Chief Referee, John Paramour delivered Whiteford the bad news after he had bogeyed the third hole in today's last round in New Delhi.

"I should have reviewed it," said Whiteford.

"You can see the ball move when you look at TV. John spoke to me before I went out, so to be honest my head wasn't in it from the first tee.

"I'm not cheating obviously. It's one of those things, but it's disappointing."

Whiteford's mistake was not to incur a penalty of one stroke and replace his ball.

As he did not do so, he was advised ahead of the final round he was disqualified for signing for a score lower than taken for failing to include the penalty he had incurred.

The Rules Committee considered the decision 33-7/4.5 which allows a committee in certain circumstances to modify the disqualification penalty and apply a penalty shot if the player had reasonably known he had incurred a penalty.

In hindsight, Whiteford should have contacted a member of the Avantha Masters rules team before signing his third round scorecard who then could have looked at TV footage and thus averting the disqualification penalty.