by Bill » Thu Aug 15, 2019 5:21 pm
I don't know how to go about selecting players for teams to minimize the difference in average handicaps between the teams, but I'd just sort the players by handicap then select 2 players from the bottom of the sorted list and 2 players from the top of the sorted list for for each 4-player team. For the 3-player teams, select 1 player from the bottom, 1 player from the top and one player from the middle. If there will be 3-player teams, then the number of 4-player teams and 3-player teams should be determined before actually making the selections.
If the total number of players isn't evenly divisible by 3, and you select the maximum number of 4-player teams, there would be from 1 to 3 leftover player(s) and you would have to pull 1 player from some of the 4-player teams to add to the leftover player(s) until the team with the leftover player(s) has 3 players. In your case, you have 17 players, which could make (4) 4-player teams with 1 leftover player, so you would have to pull 1 player from 2 of the 4-player teams, and you would end up with (2) 4-player teams and (3) 3-player teams.
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