[Jeff]

Yoda - you wrote-: "Trust me, Jeff, that rope being swung by Jason Zuback had no trouble staying straight. If you had some footage of that event, I'm confident your 'captured images' would attest to that. Swing a pen knife 'round and 'round on a string, and you'll get the idea."

Jason had a lot of trouble keeping that flexible shaft straight at start-up - as one would when dealing with a pen-knife attached to a string. When the penknife is already in a state of circular motion, the string would definitely be straight. However, if the penknife was stationary at start-up, it has inertia, and when the penknife is first pulled by the the string, the string is not in a perfect straight line relationship between the hands centerpoint-of-rotation and the penknife. Jason's clubhead lagged far behind the hands and the flexible shaft was always curved until the clubhead's speed reached a certain level of speed that could then produce a CF that could balance the CP-force exerted by the hands. From that point onwards, the clubshaft was straight.

Another point - when Jason's timing was off the clubhead bypassed his hands in a flipping motion near impact, and the flexible clubshaft was no longer straight. That happened especially if his hands slowed down just prior to impact.

Try swinging a penknife at the end of the string and then abruptly stop the hand motion - the string will not remain straight and the penknife will no longer remain in its circular orbit!

Jeff.