Phil Mickelson was charging up the Masters Tournament leaderboard with a front-nine 30 and electrifying the throngs stacked deep outside the ropes surrounding the world's No. 1 and 2 players in April.

Amid this bedlam, wearing a bright spring outfit and a brighter smile, was Amy Mickelson -- barely tall enough to get a glimpse of her husband's quest at history through the occasional gaps in the gallery.

"Isn't this fun?" she said after climbing to the top of the hill to the ninth green and running into a reporter. Then she gave a hug and immediately introduced me by name to Jennifer Mackay, the wife of Mickelson's caddie, Bones.

That was one of many quintessential Amy Mickelson moments. No matter what is going on with her famous husband inside the ropes, she has always been the most approachable, likeable and genuinely nice person hanging comfortably with the masses outside them.

"I've always said to Phil, 'I wish you could come out and walk two holes with me,' " she said in 2005. "When I'm at a tournament alone, a lot of people will come up to me and tell me how they feel about him. It's incredible. He's very lucky. It's very flattering."

The Mickelson family was feeling anything but lucky Wednesday, when it was revealed that Amy was diagnosed with breast cancer. Her husband suspended his golf career indefinitely to tend to the medical and emotional needs of his wife and their three children.

"More tests are scheduled but the treatment process is expected to begin with major surgery, possibly within the next two weeks," the press release said.

For anyone who has ever met her and received the same warmth she perpetually exudes, it is a painful revelation. Cancer is an insidious disease that knows no boundaries. It cruelly strikes young and old, rich and poor. That Amy Mickelson can be struck by it only further proves that fate shows no favorites.

The prayers and thoughts of everyone on the PGA Tour as well as the fans who both love and loathe Mickelson pour out to his wife and family as they prepare to beat a disease that poses a far greater challenge than trying to erase a seven-shot Sunday deficit at the Masters.

Their story will dominate the golf season as the U.S. Open approaches with the possibility of no Mickelson, a crowd favorite in New York.

There is probably no other marquee athlete in sports whose story is so inseparable from his wife. It's to the degree that their charitable organization is called the Phil and Amy Mickelson Foundation.

Phil and Amy met when he was a senior at Arizona State and she was a cheerleader for the Phoenix Suns. They were married in 1996. In 1999 her pregnancy with their first child, Amanda, was the primary subplot of the U.S. Open as Phil walked around Pinehurst No. 2 carrying a pager and promising to leave the second it went off. It never did until the day after Mickelson lost by a stroke to Payne Stewart.

The common jokes started then about their too-good-to-be-true Ken and Barbie personas, but sometimes the truth is just that good. Accusations of phoniness simply don't stand up.

Amy was there in 2004 at Augusta National holding their third child and first son, Evan, when Mickelson finally triumphed in his first major just a year after both Amy and the baby nearly died during childbirth.

Mickelson prayed and waited anxiously during the surgery to repair a ruptured artery in her uterus, once overhearing nurses whispering how sad it was that those children would grow up without their mother.

"It means so much for me to see her standing there holding Evan," Mickelson wrote in his book, One Magical Sunday . "After almost losing them both, here they are sharing in this wonderful, almost miraculous moment. And I realize that winning the Masters, as great as it feels, isn't the most important thing in my life."

Said Mickelson's sister, Tina, after that medical ordeal: "Having to think about what he would do without her -- his life would be over. Done. I wouldn't want to witness the extreme pain he would be going through without Amy."

Amy was there in 2006 at the U.S. Open at Winged Foot comforting her husband after he suffered his worst major defeat with a double bogey on the last hole. She called that "awful, awful day" the saddest she'd ever seen him. But it was Amy and their kids who picked him up and helped him move on.

Her demeanor never changes. Nor does her positive outlook.

"We never kind of plod along," Amy said about her husband's career. "Our highs are so high, and the lows can be pretty low. But it's nothing we haven't gotten through before. It's just part of it."

This, sadly, is too. You can be sure she and her family will attack this insidious disease with the same zest and energy that have defined them for so long.

Don't bet against her winning.