randomly group golfer into teams of 4 with no repeats over 3 days

[golfnut1]

I've created a spreadsheet where I have a list of 24 golfers. These golfers have 12 "A" players and 12 "B" players. When I hit the sort button, they are randomly divided into 6 teams of 4 with 2 "A" players and 2 "B" players on each team. Now I want to do this for 3 days with no one golfer playing on the same team with another golfer that he has already played with. In other words, each golfer should have 9 different team mates over the 3 days. I'm not sure how to do this. I'd appreciate any help. Thanks.

 

[StephenCrump]

This is the well known and extensively analysed "Social Golfer Problem".

The general question: is it possible to have X groups of Y people playing Z games, without anyone playing more than once with any other player, is an unsolved problem.

In your case though the numbers are relatively small, and with a little bit of trial and error I found one possible solution as:

[TABLE="width: 139"]
<tbody>[TR]
[TD]Event 1[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]A1, A2, B1, B2[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]A3, A4, B3, B4[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]A5, A6, B5, B6[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]A7, A8, B7, B8[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]A9, A10, B9, B10[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]A11, A12, B11, B12[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Event 2[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]A2, A3, B6, B7[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]A4, A5, B8, B9[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]A6, A7, B10, B11[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]A8, A9, B12, B1[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]A10, A11, B2, B3[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]A12, A1, B4, B5[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]Event 3[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]A1, A4, B6, B11[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]A2, A5, B3, B10[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]A3, A7, B1, B5[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]A6, A10, B7, B12[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]A8, A11, B4, B9[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]A9, A12, B8, B2[/TD]
[/TR]
</tbody>[/TABLE]

Now just randomly allocate your players to the A1 to A12 and B1 to B12 slots.

 

[golfnut1]

Thank you so much, StephanCrump. I was making it more complicated than it was. Your help was very much appreciated.

 

[StephenCrump]

You're welcome.

Happy golfing! (Or networking?)

 

[AhoyNC]

You also may want to look at this golf pairing generator.
http://golfsoftware.com/tools/schedule/golf-pairings-generator.html

 

[THECAPTAINEGHAM]

Please can you add one more day so the same formula as published but over 4 days?