The voices came from behind the ropes several times a day as Phil Mickelson played his way around East Lake Golf Club last week.
"Hey Phil, I hope Amy and your mom are doing good ... my wife had it, too."
Mr. Mickelson, in the middle of his day job trying to beat the best golfers in the world, didn't just smile and wave and walk on. On the seventh hole Saturday, he veered to the left to speak with an older man whose wife had also battled breast cancer.
"I'm sorry," Mr. Mickelson said as he shook the man's hand. "How's she doing?"
In a high-profile career where the soundest plan is to go about your business with blinders on, Mr. Mickelson can't help but have a more peripheral perspective. With his wife, Amy, and mother, Mary, both being diagnosed and undergoing surgery and treatment for breast cancer this summer, he feels a bond with the hundreds of thousands of other Americans who every year are going through the same ordeals in their lives.
"He is very concerned if everybody is getting good reports and treatment like his family is," said Jim "Bones" Mackay, Mr. Mickelson's longtime caddie and friend.
Said Mr. Mickelson: "It's tough for everybody, and I have a lot more empathy now realizing how many people it affects and how many people go through it."
Mr. Mickelson has spent the past four months trying to balance his family's privacy with his public life. He's kept the details of his wife's and mother's specific treatments and responses close to the vest while painting a positive outlook with broad brushes. They are just another family with three small children trying to deal and cope with the intrusion of cancer in their lives.
"We don't feel like we're alone in this," he said. "And there are 200,000 people that go through this, or get diagnosed with breast cancer alone every year. So we are by far a long ways away from being the only person going through this."
The Mickelsons, however, also understand that they are in a position to reach and inspire others to be vigilant about their bodies and trying to discover cancer before it's too late to defeat it. So in spite of all his distractions over the summer. Mr. Mickelson won the Tour Championship at East Lake and took the stage for another chance to get his message out.
"I want to take a minute to say how proud I am of my wife and mom on the fight that they've been through," Mr. Mickelson said at the trophy presentation, where he also said how proud he was of the other 200,000 women who are fighting just as hard.
Another man, wearing a pink polo shirt, hollered "the power of pink" as Mr. Mickelson walked under the bleachers.
Wearing a pink-ribbon breast cancer awareness pin on his cap and a pink bracelet with "Amy Mickelson" stamped onto it, Mr. Mickelson spoke of how lucky his family is and how grateful they are for the advancement in breast cancer treatment that is helping to save the lives of those closest to him.
"We're in good shape," he said. "Although day-to-day is tough, and the meds are tough, and it's not easy for them, we're fortunate that our long-term outlook looks good.
"I've got a lot of people that I'm appreciative of ... the doctors that have spent their lives doing their work and specializing in their field to save so many people's lives, my wife and mom included, and all the clinical trials that women have been a part of to be able to get the kind of information we have now."
Breast cancer is the most common form of cancer in women in the United States and kills more than 40,000 a year. But with high-profile campaigns to encourage early detection and treatment, the odds of survival can be raised.
Golf has played a significant role in getting out the message. The official charity of the LPGA Tour is Susan G. Komen for the Cure, which raises money for breast cancer research, education and treatment. On Sept. 17 at Mount Vintage Plantation in Edgefield, S.C., the Victors for a Cure golf tournament raised nearly $12,000 for the Breast Cancer Prevention Coalition.
Now the Mickelsons have brought the spotlight to the PGA Tour, which has raised more than $1 billion for charities. In the week after Mrs. Mickelson's diagnosis was publicized in May, tour players en masse held a "Pink Out" at the Crowne Plaza Invitational at Colonial, with every player, caddie, wife, announcer and most fans wearing pink to support the Mickelsons and help raise money and awareness for breast cancer research.
The Mickelsons were "overwhelmed" by the display of support.
Mrs. Mickelson is as recognizable to many as her husband, the No. 2-ranked golfer in the world. A former NBA cheerleader who has appeared in Sports Illustrated's swimsuit issue, her familiar beauty is eclipsed by the warmth of her personality. At the 2006 Ryder Cup in Ireland, she escorted European star Darren Clarke to one of the event functions after he had recently lost his wife, Heather, to breast cancer.
Mrs. Mickelson's diagnosis created a wave of emotion and responses from people all over the world.
"I think she's the most charismatic person I've ever met," her husband said. "I think that she touches people in the heart. She has a direct impact when she comes in contact with other people, and I think the response has been more because of the type of person that Amy is and how much love people have had for her and how she treats everybody so great and how she treats everybody with respect and with love and concern and genuinely cares what's going on in other people's lives. To see her go through something so difficult, I think that's what's affected people."
That closeness Amy feels with friends or fans has its drawbacks.
"Going through something like this publicly is much more difficult than it is privately, because there is no reprieve," Mr. Mickelson said. "When she goes to the mall, she gets people that she knows or hasn't seen in a while come up and cry. There's no place for her to go to forget for a little while."
When she eventually returns to the public stage with her husband at tournaments, she has the opportunity to inspire in the same way as actress Christina Applegate, who lit up the red carpet at the Emmys recently after undergoing a double mastectomy a little more than a year ago to rid herself of breast cancer.
"I think the awareness that has been brought about in the last decade about breast cancer, I think that has led to a number of early detections," Mr. Mickelson said. "Of all the criteria that you have to beat cancer, the most important one is catching it early. The awareness that has been brought about over the last decade has certainly helped us because it made us aware of it."
Now the Mickelsons can pass on that awareness to a wider audience, as Phil did with his victory and public statements last weekend.
Reach Scott Michaux at (706) 823-3219 or scott.michaux@augustachronicle.com.
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