Author: Jennifer Sinkwitts, Sr. Director of Communications
This week, Patrick Flavin, a VelocityEHS-sponsored professional golfer, and Velocity’s Jeff Sanford, a board-certified professional ergonomist, sat down to answer the question, “Does professional golf have anything in common with ergonomics?”
Patrick and Jeff agreed, “It certainly does!”
The pair met up at the Ambassador Golf Course in Windsor, Canada, where Patrick was preparing for the BioSteel tournament on the PGA Tour Americas golf tour. As it turns out, the same principles that drive success on the golf course are must-haves for ergonomists and EHS professionals tasked with managing effective and sustainable ergonomics processes. Both rely on expertise and data-backed technology.
Expertise is Critical to Performance
Neither golf nor ergonomics is a solo sport. What makes someone a pro in either field is having the right support system to help you learn, grow, and coach you. Both Patrick and Jeff rely on experts to back them up.
“I have had so many people help me achieve my goal of winning on the PGA tour,” says Patrick.
His journey has largely been shaped by his
- parents, who put his first golf club in his hands at age 11 and traveled across the country with him attending tournaments and observing top-performing players.
- swing coach, Louis Sauer. They have worked together for over ten years, and Louis has dedicated immense amounts of time and energy to help Patrick improve every aspect of his game.
- high school golf coach, Paul Harris, and his college golf coach, Zac Zedrick. Both significantly influenced Patrick; they were tough, demanding excellence on and off the course. They taught him the nuances of the game and instilled in him the importance of acting with class and poise.
- Miami University Sports Psychologist, Dr. Jim Slager. To this day, Patrick still seeks Dr. Slager’s guidance. He has been instrumental in enhancing Patrick’s mental game and providing him with the tools to navigate the challenges of professional golf.
- sponsors, like VelocityEHS. “I am so appreciative to have a partner who believes in me and whose values match my own. It allows me to travel all over the world, to compete in every event, and to give myself the best chance to earn my PGA tour card,” said Flavin.
“Developing an environment where people feel excited to grow, safe to fail, and better able to deal with what comes next is a lot like building an ergonomics team,” says Jeff. “Surrounding yourself with a supportive team is the first step to improving the workplace.”
In the world of ergonomics, that includes
- training a cross-functional group to support the process,
- getting them excited to learn what good workplace design looks like,
- understanding how to assess and prioritize jobs that put workers at a high risk of developing a musculoskeletal disorder injury,
- working with experts at a facility to learn how to improve jobs and implement fixes, and
- being able to pivot in the face of changes or challenges.
Expertise is key to making a good improvement stick. There are many ergonomics risk assessment tools on the market that use artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning. Some are solid tools, while others leave much to be desired in the effort to reduce risk. What makes a software tool successful is that it was developed by certified experts and backed by science.
“Having a valid risk assessment tool with thresholds tied to the most recent and relevant research is vital to the process of risk assessment and risk reduction, says Sanford.”
The VelocityEHS team includes researchers like Blake McGowan and Rick Barker, both board-certified professional ergonomists with decades of experience. Their expertise is embedded in the VelocityEHS Industrial Ergonomics software to enable EHS professionals to identify areas of concern in the workplace and fix them.
Another key to embedding that expertise into the Velocity software is the team of AI scientists behind it, led by Dr. Julia Penfield, VP of Research & Machine Learning. She leads a multi-disciplinary group of AI and ML experts that includes partners from the University of Michigan, University of Toronto, Rutgers University, and biomechanical specialists from the University of Cincinnati. Pull it all together and you have an ergonomics “golf bag” stacked with the best tools to execute your health and safety goals!
Technology and Data Amplify Expertise to Deliver Results
The value of cutting-edge technology was another area where Patrick and Jeff found common ground. In both golf and ergonomics, the right tools can provide strategic advantages that reduce risk and greatly increase your chance of success.
Technology essentials in Patrick’s golf bag, besides his clubs, include a TrackMan and rangefinder. These devices can work together to assess his swing and impact on the ball, as well as collect data points on the ball’s travel distance, spin, launch angle, height, and aspects of the golf club itself (attack angle, club path, face angle).
When used correctly, the data highlights areas where he needs to focus during practice, improving his performance. “Data is vital to performing at a high level, especially on a new golf course with varying weather, altitude, and course conditions,” explains Patrick. “I also use the data to compare myself to other PGA tour players, identify areas for improvement, test new equipment, and make changes to my swing.”
Another key piece of technology for Patrick is the Titleist ProV1x golf ball, which he has used exclusively since college. According to Patrick, “It provides the best performance. It flies higher and with more spin than most other golf balls on the market, which is exactly what I need according to my TrackMan data.”
Just as golfers rely on tech to master their sport, ergonomists, and other EHS professionals tasked as workplace improvement experts, have powerful tools at their service. One game-changing example is Velocity’s new 3-dimensional (3D) model for motion-capture in the Industrial Ergonomics software. Launched this summer, it allows users to conduct ergonomics assessments more quickly and effortlessly. This tool enables extremely fast and accurate risk assessment of a job task, providing expert results without requiring you to be an expert yourself.
“I wish I had a tool like our 3D assessment that could assess my golf swing and fix it as quickly as we help our customers identify and control risks for their workers,” says Jeff.
Ergonomics is more than just assessments, however. It encompasses managing and sustaining the entire process: training workers, collecting the right data to make informed decisions, and implementing effective changes to drive exceptional outcomes for both frontline workers and the business.
Velocity’s patented AI tools are revolutionary, enhancing efficiency and making people safer, faster. But without a robust management database to collect, sift, and sort the data, users would face the daunting task of refining an immense pool of information—millions or even trillions of data points—to find what will help them make informed decisions.
In golfing terms, imagine each blade of grass on your favorite golf course is a data point, and one sliver of grass has the secret sauce to making a hole in one. If you had to find it, where would you start? Velocity’s ergonomics assessment tool crunches the data for you so you can prioritize and achieve your results in record time.
Be sure to follow Patrick as he makes his way through PGA Tour Americas, with hopes of landing a spot on the Korn Ferry Tour—and then on to the PGA! And stay tuned to www.EHS.com for expert updates and news on the latest technological advancements in industrial ergonomics.