Golf Trip Foursome Picker Math Problem

Scott Muc — Mon, 18 Jun 2007 03:48:23 GMT

Every year I go out on a golf trip with 10-16 guys. One of the biggest problems with the event is making sure everyone golfs with everyone, and that no-one seems to golf with the same person too often. My math skills are sorely lacking right now and could use some help to write a little application that takes a pool of players, a count of how many rounds are to be played, and output the assigned groups for each round.

Right now I don't even know where to begin. I think the first crack at the problem should have the number of golfers % 4 equal to zero as a start. Then eventually refine it for when we have to deal with a threesome or perhaps more than one threesome.

I would love to gather as much feedback as possible. It doesn't have to solve my problem but at least a nudge in the right direction would be great. I promise to post my code when this gets finished.

I'm going write my first version that simply does random picks from a pool without replacement for each round and see that stats of that method.