Bunker as GUR through the Green

For the last 5 weeks, I was busy with the Indian Golf Union(IGU), acting as a referee for their Junior tour and the Amateur Tour. The circuit was touring South India and tournaments were held in Eagleton Village, Karnataka Golf Association and Coimbatore.
For the Amateur event in Eagleton and KGA, our panel of Referees also incuded Mickey Zarra who volunteered his services and gave some quality time. Mickey is a USA PGA Referee and is currently based in Bangalore.
The Eagleton Amateur was progressing smoothly,with the local lad Chikka Rangappa leading all the way.After the end of the third round, during the night,a heavy downpour drenched the course. However, on the morning of the final day, when we did the course inspection, we found the course in good condition, except for a few bunkers.We cleaned up the bunkers and announced a delayed start of 30 minutes.The course staff did a wonderful work and made the start possible.But, we were told that the greenside bunker on the short par 3 hole number 5 will continue to be full of water and will not dry out, even if pumped out.There was an adjacent storage lake which was overflowing and filling up the bunker.
Decision 33-8/27 does not encourage a local rule allowing a player to take a free relief from a bunker full of casual water, contrary to rule 25-1b.However, in very extreme cases for specific bunkers, it makes some exceptions.The first part of the decision states that if specific bunkers are flooded prior to the commencement of the competition and there is no likelihood of the bunkers drying up during the competition, an exception can be made. Since the bunker was not flooded before the competition started, I was of the view that we cannot allow a free relief. But Mickey had a different view, since the last part of decision 33-8/27 states that such an exception can be made or rescinded between rounds, if the competition is played over one round.He opined that the pre condition of flooding before competition is applicable for a single round competition.
As I still had some reservations, he consulted an US open official in Alabama and explained the situation. The Alabama official, after some debate, confirmed that We can give free relief outside the bunker. We accordingly posted the notice that the Greenside bunker on hole 3 was GUR through the green and provided a drop zone for the free relief.