Further birdies followed on the 13th and 15th, both par fives, as Koepka cruised into pole position to claim his fifth major title and a first since the 2019 US PGA Championship.
However, while Koepka was out on the course, an incident from his first round continued to be debated after TV footage appeared to show his caddie Ricky Elliott saying “five” to playing partner Gary Woodland’s caddie on the 15th.
If that was deemed to have been advice on which club Koepka had just hit into the par five it would be a breach of the rules, but the pair were quickly cleared of any wrongdoing.
“Following the completion of Brooks Koepka’s round, the Committee questioned his caddie and others in the group about a possible incident on No. 15,” James B. Hyler Jr, Chairman of Competition Committees, said in a statement.
“All involved were adamant that no advice was given or requested. Consequently, the Committee determined that there was no breach of the rules.”
However, former Ryder Cup captain Paul McGinley, speaking in his role as an analyst for Golf Channel, said: “It’s very obvious… it’s staggering that they’ve denied it because the evidence is there.
“This is common practice on tour. Whether you like it or not, it happens in every professional tournament around the world.
“If the authorities want to stamp this out (they would) really come down on this and make an example of it, and obviously they haven’t. They’ve chosen not to do that and it looked very clearly the evidence was against them.”
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Pre-tournament joint-favourite Rory McIlroy was facing a battle to make the halfway cut after covering the first 11 holes of his second round in five over par.
McIlroy, who had talked confidently on Tuesday of having all the ingredients to claim a green jacket following his closing 64 here last year, dropped shots on the second, third, sixth, seventh and 11th to fall outside the projected cut mark.
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