Manage Golf Groups Fairly & Easily

Manage group assignments for golfers and create fair groups where everyone gets a chance to play together. Say goodbye to spreadsheets and manual sorting.

Open The App

BETA Currently in Beta. Free to use. Feedback appreciated.

How It Works

Get started in three simple steps

1
Add Your Members

Enter the names of all golfers in your group or club. Beta users can manage up to 120 members per event.

2
Create Sessions

Set up your golf days or rounds. Select which members are playing each session and configure group sizes.

3
Generate Fair Groups

Our genetic algorithm creates optimal groupings, ensuring maximum variety based on past play history.

Fair Grouping

Our smart algorithm ensures everyone plays with everyone else over time. No more cliques or repetitive groups.

Offline Ready

Works completely without internet. Perfect for remote golf trips or areas with poor reception. Syncs when you're back online.

Large Groups

Scales effortlessly to handle large club events and tournaments. Manage dozens of players with ease. (limited during beta)

Advanced Flexibility

Adapt to any situation with powerful customization options

Share Links
NEW

Everyone in your group can check their assigned flight at any time. Share a simple link and players instantly see which group they're in, who they're playing with, and their tee time. No login required for viewers.

Fixed Tee Time Positions

Need to leave early? Assign specific players to the first or last tee time. The algorithm respects these fixed positions while still optimizing fairness for everyone else.

Dynamic Group Size

Change group sizes on the fly. Switch between pairs, threesomes, or foursomes as needed.

Reserve Empty Spots

Keep an empty spot when groups normally play in threes but some prefer pairs.

Adjust Groups Per Day

Update the number of groups for each day to match actual tee time availability.

Quick Reshuffle

React fast to last-minute changes. Regenerate fair groups in seconds.

Session History

Remember past sessions and include them in fairness calculations automatically.

Quick Corrections

Handle cancellations or swaps easily. Recalculate fairness with one tap.

Full Session Changes

Modify entire sessions when bookings, weather, or circumstances require a new setup.

Export Data

Export your event data as JSON for backup or analysis purposes.

Trip Logistics

Include flights, airports, hotels, and addresses in sessions. Perfect for group trips and golf vacations.

Assign Anything

Beyond golf: transport pickups, restaurant table assignments, training breakout groups, and more.

Built for the Real World

Traditional scheduling systems fail because golf never goes according to plan

Common Scheduling Problems
  • Players switch groups last minute due to personal conflicts
  • Someone asks for the first tee time to leave early
  • A regular player cancels the night before
  • Weather forces a day cancellation mid-event
  • New players join halfway through a tournament
  • Players want to know their start time the day before
How Social Golfer Handles It
  • Regenerate fair groups in seconds after any change
  • Assign fixed positions for first/last tee times
  • Mark players as absent and recalculate instantly
  • Adjust session count on the fly
  • Add members anytime; history adapts automatically
  • Share view-only links so everyone stays informed

The Algorithm

Solving a mathematically hard problem on your device

The Social Golfer Problem

The Social Golfer Problem (SGP) is a well-known combinatorial optimization problem in mathematics. The challenge: schedule n golfers into g groups of s players over w weeks, ensuring no two golfers share a group more than once.

This problem is closely related to Steiner systems and Kirkman's schoolgirl problem (1850). It belongs to the class of NP-hard problems, meaning the search space grows factorially with the number of players and rounds.

For example, scheduling 32 golfers into 8 groups of 4 over 10 weeks involves exploring a solution space with more possible arrangements than atoms in the observable universe.

Our Genetic Algorithm

Social Golfer uses a genetic algorithm with local search optimization. The computation runs entirely on your device (browser or mobile), optimized for mobile hardware.

Runtime complexity: approximately O(rounds × permutations × explored_options × group_size²)

Real-world example: Scheduling 200 players playing weekly for a year generates approximately 1.5 billion permutation from 50 random starting points. This resolves in roughly 15 seconds on a modern smartphone.

The algorithm detects when conflicts become necessary (mathematically unavoidable repeat pairings) and can escape local optima through randomized restarts when the search conflicts are too high (resuts shown per calculation).

BETA PROGRAM

Join the Beta, Become a Premium User

Beta users who register now and provide feedback are eligible to become Premium users for free when paid tiers are introduced. Engaged testers and serious users will retain their elevated limits at no cost.

3
Events
120
Golfers
52
Sessions
30
Groups

Premium status for beta users is at the discretion of the developer and is granted to engaged testers who actively use the app and provide valuable feedback.

ROADMAP

Coming Soon

Features we're building based on your feedback

Agent Tier Features
White Label

Brand the app as your own with pre-configured authentication for your customers.

Vacation Import

Upload complete vacation itineraries directly to an event.

Remote Management

Single event managed remotely by agent with on-site trip coordinator.

Read-Only Mode

Locked features that customers cannot override or modify.

Pro Tier Features
PDF Reports

Complete itinerary reports for the entire event or a single day. Print-ready format for easy distribution.

Version Tracking

Know if a shared PDF report is still valid or if changes have been made.

Data Import

Upload member lists and session history easily from spreadsheets.

Training Groups

Schedule pro golfers to be grouped with pupils for training sessions.

Premium Tier Features
Full Backup

Download complete data archive for safekeeping and migration.

Session Lock

Protect past sessions from accidental changes or modifications.

Rollback

Restore previous group assignment versions to recover from accidental rescheduling.

Basic Features
Started
Matrix Report

Online matrix overview showing who has played with whom across all sessions.

Feature Requests from Beta Users

Ideas suggested by our beta community. This list keeps growing as we receive feedback!

  • Multi-user event managers. Allow multiple users to manage the same event collaboratively Under Review
  • Add an exclusion Rule. Ensure specific players are never grouped together in the same flight Under Review
  • Generate group start times dynamically based on first tee time and course rules Under Review
  • Auto-lock new users to "unassigned" status for locked sessions Under Review
  • Support custom session grouping (e.g., competition name) instead of day of week Under Review
  • Print directly from the grouping screen Under Review
  • Create a page showing all sessions and groups for a specific day Accepted

Have a feature idea? Share your feedback after logging in!

Frequently Asked Questions

Common questions about Social Golfer

The Social Golfer Problem (SGP) is a well-known combinatorial optimization problem in mathematics, closely related to Steiner systems and Kirkman's schoolgirl problem (1850). The challenge is to schedule golfers into groups over multiple rounds so that no two players share a group more than once. This is an NP-hard problem, meaning the solution space grows factorially with the number of players. Our app uses a genetic algorithm to find near-optimal solutions efficiently.

Yes! Social Golfer is completely free during the beta period. No credit card required. Beta users who actively use the app and provide feedback are eligible to become Premium users for free when paid tiers are introduced. This is at the developer's discretion for engaged testers and serious users.

Yes! Social Golfer is a Progressive Web App (PWA) that works completely offline. Perfect for golf courses with poor reception. You can add it to your home screen on mobile devices for a native app experience. All data syncs automatically when you're back online. The group calculation algorithm runs entirely on your device, so you can generate new groupings even without internet.

During the beta, you can manage up to 120 members per event, create up to 52 sessions (perfect for a year of weekly golf), and organize up to 30 groups per session. You can also manage up to 3 separate events, ideal for different golf groups, clubs, or tournaments.

Absolutely! This is one of our most valued features. Generate a share link that allows any player to see their assigned group, flight mates, and tee time at any moment. No login required for viewers. Share via WhatsApp, email, or any messaging app. Players can check their assignment anytime, even the night before.

The algorithm is optimized for mobile devices. For typical club events (20-40 players over several sessions), calculations complete in a second. Even large-scale scenarios with 200 players playing weekly for a year (generating approximately 1.5 billion permutation) resolve in about 15 seconds on a modern smartphone. The algorithm shows a progress indicator and displays fairness scores for each round.

For mathematically complex configurations (many players, many rounds), perfect solutions where no two players ever repeat may not exist. Our algorithm detects when conflicts become necessary and shows you the fairness score for each round. If the calculation gets stuck in a local optimum, you can restart it to explore different random starting points. The algorithm always finds the best possible solution given the constraints.

Because this app is built for the real world. By golfers, for golfers. We've played golf all over the world and know that flexibility and instant decisions are essential, just like on the course itself. Golf courses are often out of reach from reliable internet. The organizer standing at the first tee box needs to reassign groups immediately when players are late, arrive early, or swap with another flight. This all has to work offline, directly on your device, without waiting for a server response. That's why the algorithm runs locally. So you're never stuck without a solution when it matters most. When internet becomes available, data syncs automatically to the server. A special version tracking feature (available to Pro users) is planned to indicate the organizer's the sync status.

You can reach the team using the contact details listed in the app’s settings page.

A full list of third-party notices is available at our license page.