You are looking at the picture of golf’s teen sensation, Michelle Wei of Hawaii, a 13-year-old girl whose features defy the limits of her age.

She recently made golfing waves in the 2003 U.S. Women’s Amateur Public Links golf tournament by capturing the champion’s trophy and becoming the youngest winner of the event at age 11. She also recorded her name as the youngest golfer ever to play in a Professional Golf Association (PGA) event when she teed off at the Sony Open on January 15, 2004. Her participation in the event also marked the only fourth time in the long history of the PGA to have a female joining a male-dominated professional group.

Her ballooning popularity has actually landed her on the front cover of Fortune magazine and has even got the lucidity of some people to the limit when she is thought of to be the anti-christ because of her phenomenal golfing prowess.

Is she the heir-apparent to the throne now occupied by Tiger Woods?

In boxing, talk is a commodity.  It may be just as expensive as the boxing purse itself as it is the link that ties fighting parties together.  Talk is also a medium used by handlers to hype up the upcoming bouts of their wards and it is also no surprise when the punchers don’t use just their fists but also their words before, during, and after a fight.

Since professional boxing is highly defined by time tables, it is expected that the camps involved in a particular match will be rounded up by mediamen and get to put the camps in some sort of “word war” before the actual “war” happens.  This is especially true when a bout is one for the title or when the protagonists involved are the cream of the crop and when their upcoming skirmish is gigantically promising in terms of monetary returns for all the parties concerned.  Professional boxing, in fact, is presently under the mercy of moneyed promoters and media outlets.

It is, therefore, no surprise to hear of Freddie Roach to utter unwelcome words about Erik Morales, if ever he indeed said those words, to sell the highly expected third encounter between Manny Pacquiao and Morales.  Morales’ response does its own share of emboldening the fonts of his second rematch with the Pacman.

To sum it up, word war always precedes wards war.