March 20, 2002
By Tyler Norris Goode POSTED: March 18, 2002 11:24 p.m.
CULLOWHEE - Knowing her story will be broadcast to thousands of people in her home country would have been enough to make Western Carolina freshman golfer Line Cordes smile, but that wasn't the main reason for her enthusiasm.
Neither was having a film crew from her native Denmark follow her every move for several days recently, nor being able to show the folks back home just how a good a No, the pure joy Cordes found in hosting the film crew was being able to carry on a conversation in her native language.
"It was fun to have some people to speak Danish with," she said with a huge grin on her face. "It's harder to speak now, though. You forget some of the words and stuff."
Though Cordes may have been self-conscious about losing some of her language skills, what caught the film crew's attention was the improvement in her golf game.
"The training here has helped her very much," said Hans Otto Delfs, the chief journalist editor for TV2/NORD in Aabybro, Denmark, part of a crew that visited WNC for a feature on Cordes.
"Just watching her, we can tell she's hitting the ball much harder. She's already won a tournament here."
Indeed, the Danish freshman posted the lowest 36-hole score in WCU history (146) last fall when she won the individual title at the Great Smokies Women's Intercollegiate tournament.
Cordes and sophomore Rebecca Twiner are the only two Catamounts to win individual titles, and they are two of the primary reasons WCU's expectations are high this season.
With Cordes finishing tied for third overall with a round of 77, WCU won the Elon Intercollegiate Tournament over the weekend when Sunday's final round was cancelled due to rain. The Catamounts shot a team total of 322 to beat Lenoir-Rhyne by two strokes, Johanna Lundberg (78) finished fifth and Twiner (79) tied for sixth.
While the film crew missed her team's victory, they left impressed with her desire to get better while playing far away from home.
"We are trying to tell the story of a young Dane who came here to be better golfer and how she dreams of becoming a pro," said Delfs, who will air the 12-minute feature in May.
"I didn't expect this to happen," said Cordes, who holds a 3.8 grade-point average at WCU. "I'm glad my friends back home will get to watch it and see what it's like here."
ON THE NET: www.catamountsports.com
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