Cadillac Championship 2012 Leaderboard: Biggest Disappointments Through 2 Rounds

There were plenty of high expectations entering the Cadillac Championship, and while Tiger Woods has somewhat held up his end of the bargain with a five-under score through two rounds, some of the other top guys are lagging well behind leader Bubba Watson, who currently sits at 12-under par.

While it never seems too late to make a run, golfers who trail the leaders by double-digits have a ton of work ahead of them if they want to get back in contention. Since this is a tournament featuring the best players in the world, many golf fans had ideas of who might be vying for the title, but things haven't worked out as anticipated.

Here are the Cadillac Championship's biggest disappointments midway through the tournament.

Rory McIlroy

After winning the Honda Classic and ascending to the world's No. 1 ranking last week, many expected Rory McIlroy to continue to build his resume with a big performance in the Cadillac Championship. While McIlroy hasn't been a sieve by any means, he is just two-under par and is 10 shots behind the leader.

It's fair to say that the battle that almost every golf fans was hoping for was McIlroy and Tiger Woods vying for the lead late in the tournament.

While that was somewhat the case last week, Woods had to make a major comeback and was in a much earlier pairing, so McIlroy didn't really "stare down" Tiger as many have suggested. Tiger himself is going to have a tough time getting in contention as he is seven strokes back, but McIlroy needs two immaculate rounds and some help.

This tournament just proves that McIlroy is human and not the machine that he was made out to be last week.

Phil Mickelson

Phil Mickelson has been playing extremely well as of late, and because of that there was some thought that he would be a major player to win the tournament along with Woods and McIlroy.

Lefty has been very inconsistent thus far in the Cadillac Championship as he continually cancels out his birdies by making bogey or worse on the very next hole. He has been unable to find a rhythm and that leaves him at one-under par.

With the Masters approaching quickly, most golf fans would love to see Mickelson in form, but if he continues to play like this, then his chances of winning another green jacket aren't good. With McIlroy playing so well lately and Woods rounding back into form, Mickelson has been a bit of a forgotten man, and it looks as if that will continue in this tournament.

Hunter Mahan

After defeating McIlroy in the finals of the Accenture Match Play Championship a couple weeks back, Hunter Mahan had reached the pinnacle of his golf career to this point with a world ranking of No. 10. He hasn't quite been able to build off of it, though, as he is only at one-under par in the Cadillac Championship and hasn't shown any signs of contending.

Mahan is one of the better players on tour who has yet to win a major, so he certainly would like to be at his best leading up to the Masters.

Mahan, even after his match play title, is fairly anonymous amongst casual golf fans, but he also has die-hards that know he has a ton of potential. The Europeans seem to have a ton of rising stars coming up through the ranks, but the Americans are lagging behind a bit in that regard.

Mahan is one player who is on the verge of becoming elite, although his Cadillac Championship performance to this point hasn't shown it.