<div><p>SAN DIEGO (Reuters) - World number two Phil Mickelson will miss next month's WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship in Arizona to take a family holiday which had to be postponed because of his wife Amy's cancer treatment.</p><p>The elite World Golf Championships (WGC) events are just one rung down from the majors but the American left-hander said he would skip this year's edition because his three children would be out of school.</p><p>"I love the Match Play and I love Tucson but it was the best week for us to have a family vacation that we had to reschedule because of our procedures," Mickelson told reporters on the eve of Thursday's opening round at the San Diego Open.</p><p>"We had a couple of procedures scheduled for this off-season that got postponed. We had to move one into March and this affected some of our family trips."</p><p>Mickelson's wife and his mother were diagnosed with breast cancer last year, forcing the three-times major winner to limit his playing schedule for 2009.</p><p>"I expect this to kind of happen a little bit throughout this year, maybe missing tournaments I would like to play or normally would play," Mickelson said.</p><p>"But later on in the year, I'll probably add a tournament that I hadn't originally planned on playing to kind of offset it."</p><p>Mickelson said the long-term outlooks for the two women were favorable.</p><p>"Amy and my mom are doing great and things have gone very well," he added. "But even in the best-case scenario, dealing with cancer is never easy, and so it's not easy for them."</p><p>Mickelson said he planned to play in the next three PGA Tour events before skipping the February 17-21 WGC-Accenture Match Play Championship in Tucson.</p><p>"Then I'll play the following week in Phoenix," the 39-year-old added. "I'll take the next week off, when we again have some stuff treatment-wise, and I should be able to play Doral, the World Golf Championship."</p><p>Mickelson will be defending his title at Doral, his one-shot victory in last year's WGC-CA Championship giving him his first WGC crown.</p><p>Mickelson heads the field at the San Diego Open where world number one and six-times winner Tiger Woods is a notable absentee after taking an indefinite break from the game.</p><p>(Editing by Ed Osmond)</p><img src="http://admatch-syndication.mochila.com/images/ad.gif?aid=67914012&bid=informcom" /></div><div id="copyright"><div>

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