24 golfers, 8 weeks, mixing foursomes

[kolsen]

I'm trying to schedule an 8 week fun senior golf league with 24 players. We want to mix our foursomes to maximize the chances to play with all or as many of the others as possible.  I've struggled with some hueristic methods, but keep getting overlaps and gaps. There HAS to be a better way.   Any help?

[Ian Wakeling]

Please have a look at this thread.  The main schedule is for 7 weeks and I think a solution based on this is the way to go.  There are probably four options.

(1) Use the 7 weeks exactly as shown.  All players will have 21 different partners.
(2) As (1), but use the scores from the first 7 weeks to divide the players into equal ability groups for the final week.
(3) Play the 8 threesomes from the footnote in the 8th week.  For me this is the most elegant solution mathematically, as I think it's the only way that you will get each players to play with the other 23 players exactly once.
(4) Break the last two threesomes from the footnote and add one extra player to each of the first six threesomes.

Hope that helps.

[kolsen]

Super!  I like the 7 week schedule plus using threesomes on the  eighth week. Thank you!