Humana Day 2: Can Mickelson rally?

So there is an old saying that you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t make him drink. In golf, that translates into you can bring great players to your golf tournament, but that doesn’t mean they are going to play great.

That was the case Thursday in the Humana Challenge. Some great players are in the field. They didn’t play great. In fact, Dustin Johnson, Matt Kuchar, Greg Norman, Anthony Kim  and Phil Mickelson all failed to break 70 on a perfect scoring day in the desert.

 The real concern here has to be Mickelson, who managed just a 74 Thursday with two drives out of bounds. He’s 11 shots off the lead and really needs two pretty good days of golf just to make the 54-hole cut. But Mickelson was pretty upbeat after the 74. It could be he is just interested in getting three rounds of golf in before San Diego next week.

But Mickelson is at the Nicklaus Private Course today, and if he is going to go low anywhere, it’s is going to be there.