22 people playing 6 rounds of golf

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Question from angi:

Subject: Golf Schedule

I'm having a problem scheduling matches for a golf vacation.
We have 22 people playing 6 rounds of golf.
We know that we will need to have two 3 man pairings each day.
Is there a way to make sure that is not a great deal of duplication.
I did see how Penny answered a question in 2005 with the circles.
Is there a way mathematically to do this or through excel?

I had previuosly tried to send this question, but I am not sure that it went through.

Angi,

These are not easy problems. The web page "The social golfer problem", http://www.maa.org/editorial/mathgames/mathgames_08_14_07.html, gives the following schedule under which 24 golfers can play in foursomes for 7 days. I think that if you delete players O and V, and use days 1 through 6 only, then the schedule is exactly what you want. The thing happens if any 2 players belonging to the same foursome on day 7, and day 7 itself, are deleted.

Day1 ABKU IJSE QRCM DGFX HLNO PTVW
Day2 ACLV IKTF QSDN EHGR BMOP JUWX
Day3 ADMW ILUG QTEO FBHS CJNP KRVX
Day4 AENX IMVH QUFP GCBT DJKO LRSW
Day5 AFOR INWB QVGJ HDCU EKLP MSTX
Day6 AEPS IOXC QWHK BEDV FJLM NRTU
Day7 AHJT IPRD QXBL CFEW GKMN OSUV

Enjoy!
--Victoria

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