How to avoid playing golf with people you don't like
February 22, 2012 4:08 PM Subscribe
I'm looking for a free program/app/webpage, etc that will allow me to create 6 or 7 rounds worth of golf foursomes with as little repetition as possible.
My dad's annual golf trip is coming up, and he is in charge of assigning players to (mostly) foursomes; there will be as many as 35 people playing on a given day. Is there a relatively easy way to group and rotate everyone on a daily basis that minimizes the chance of someone playing with the same person/people again?
I've done some searching and see that there are a number of sites that allow you to pay for the privilege of determining the daily draws. However, as this is more of a convenience thing than a necessity, I'd rather not plunk down upwards of $30 for personalized results.
Anyone have any ideas and/or input? Is there some nifty tool on random.org that would be of any use? Is there a better way than just repeatedly using the List Randomizer on random.org and assembling the groups by going down the list?
My dad's annual golf trip is coming up, and he is in charge of assigning players to (mostly) foursomes; there will be as many as 35 people playing on a given day. Is there a relatively easy way to group and rotate everyone on a daily basis that minimizes the chance of someone playing with the same person/people again?
I've done some searching and see that there are a number of sites that allow you to pay for the privilege of determining the daily draws. However, as this is more of a convenience thing than a necessity, I'd rather not plunk down upwards of $30 for personalized results.
Anyone have any ideas and/or input? Is there some nifty tool on random.org that would be of any use? Is there a better way than just repeatedly using the List Randomizer on random.org and assembling the groups by going down the list?
On further reflection, call the club hosting the event. They probably have software for this purpose already and will deal with the situation as part of hosting the group. ;)
posted by carmicha at 6:21 PM on February 22, 2012
posted by carmicha at 6:21 PM on February 22, 2012
I remember this same question being asked here, something about hosting an event and trying to come up with seating arrangements so that the same people weren't always sitting together every day. No luck googling it yet.
If I recall correctly, there was a link to a paper or usenet investigation of this class of problem, which found it surprisingly difficult to come up with a scheduling algorithm more efficient than a brute force search.
posted by ceribus peribus at 6:31 PM on February 22, 2012
If I recall correctly, there was a link to a paper or usenet investigation of this class of problem, which found it surprisingly difficult to come up with a scheduling algorithm more efficient than a brute force search.
posted by ceribus peribus at 6:31 PM on February 22, 2012
Aha! Finally found it (it was flug who posted the interesting sci.math link). The problem being discussed there is analogous to this one - they're discussing how to determine the maximum number of rounds that can be scheduled without anyone having to "meet" the same person more than once.
For your situation, I would borrow from that thread and brute force the schedule based on the total number of players. I'm sure that pseudocode will be posted shortly.
posted by ceribus peribus at 6:55 PM on February 22, 2012
For your situation, I would borrow from that thread and brute force the schedule based on the total number of players. I'm sure that pseudocode will be posted shortly.
posted by ceribus peribus at 6:55 PM on February 22, 2012
Response by poster: I saw that AskMe and found it very...complicated. I thought about working it out using their examples, but I was thrown because it's not a nice square like the 6x6 or 7x7 examples they use.
posted by jenny76 at 7:44 PM on February 22, 2012
posted by jenny76 at 7:44 PM on February 22, 2012
It's probably obvious, but I just saw that the grid I posted above got a bit garbled in the posting. You assemble the foursomes vertically from within each group to get five rounds apiece.
posted by carmicha at 8:50 PM on February 22, 2012
posted by carmicha at 8:50 PM on February 22, 2012
This thread is closed to new comments.
round 1 round 2 round 3 round 4 round 5
group 1
Golfer 0 Golfer 0 Golfer 0 Golfer 0 Golfer 0
Golfer 1 Golfer 6 Golfer 4 Golfer 5 Golfer 7
Golfer 2 Golfer 9 Golfer 8 Golfer 11 Golfer 10
Golfer 3 Golfer 13 Golfer 12 Golfer 14 Golfer 15
group 2
Golfer 4 Golfer 3 Golfer 3 Golfer 2 Golfer 2
Golfer 5 Golfer 7 Golfer 5 Golfer 6 Golfer 4
Golfer 6 Golfer 8 Golfer 9 Golfer 8 Golfer 9
Golfer 7 Golfer 14 Golfer 15 Golfer 15 Golfer 14
group 3
Golfer 8 Golfer 2 Golfer 2 Golfer 3 Golfer 3
Golfer 9 Golfer 5 Golfer 7 Golfer 4 Golfer 6
Golfer 10 Golfer 10 Golfer 11 Golfer 10 Golfer 11
Golfer 11 Golfer 12 Golfer 13 Golfer 13 Golfer 12
group 4
Golfer 12 Golfer 1 Golfer 1 Golfer 1 Golfer 1
Golfer 13 Golfer 4 Golfer 6 Golfer 7 Golfer 5
Golfer 14 Golfer 11 Golfer 10 Golfer 9 Golfer 8
Golfer 15 Golfer 15 Golfer 14 Golfer 12 Golfer 13
Everyone meets exactly once. If you want to write a little program to deal with it, this paper may be useful.
posted by carmicha at 6:18 PM on February 22, 2012