Golf for 2 groups of 4 for six rounds

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Question from Andy:

You have very kindly responded to a couple of questions I asked previously and I have tried to find the answer to my current query on the various links etc. My question: There are 8 of us going on a Golf Tour and we will be playing 2 groups of 4 for six rounds of golf. Is there a suitable schedule that works to ensure everyone plays with each other the same number of times (or as close as possible). Many thanks again for your help.

Andy,

I wrote a program to search through all of the possible schedules and choose the best one according to some criteria on what makes a schedule "balanced". Here is what it found. The eight players correspond to the eight positions in the list. One foursome is indicated with 0, and the other with 1. For example, on day 3 the foursomes and 1, 2, 7, 8 and 3, 4, 5, 6. You can fix the tee times so that player 1 does not always tee off in the first group.

Day 1 : (0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1, 1)
Day 2 : (0, 0, 1, 1, 0, 0, 1, 1)
Day 3 : (0, 0, 1, 1, 1, 1, 0, 0)
Day 4 : (0, 1, 0, 1, 0, 1, 0, 1)
Day 5 : (0, 1, 0, 1, 1, 0, 1, 0)
Day 6 : (0, 1, 1, 0, 0, 1, 1, 0)

Have a great trip.
--Victoria

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