Matchplay Competition Rules | Golf Monthly

Related to this thread, I'd like to ask people's opinions on this scenario:

Last year there was a foursomes knockout. In one round, due to various holidays, illnesses, etc, members of boths pairs couldn't make it by the due date. It was therefore up to the pairs to choose a way to send one them through. Pretty much anything would have been acceptable: toss of a coin, game of darts, outcome of a footie match, etc.

As it happens, one of each pair was available on the due date, so they decided to have a singles match - an actual game of golf - to decide the outcome. Both pairs were happy with this. But after the fact, others in the competition heard about it and objected. The result was that both pairs were DQ'd.

Now to my mind, choosing to play a singles match to decide the winner seems eminently reasonable, but the objectors seemed to think it was pretty much the one thing they shouldn't be allowed to do, and the committee sided with them. ("It's a pairs competition, you can't play singles"). Seems bonkers to me when if, say, they'd had a raindrops on the window race that would have been deemed OK. What are other people's thoughts on this?

(PS. I was not involved at all in this - my pair had already been knocked out in an earlier round).