How can I create a "team leaders" chart to organize low averages for a golf team?

Question

I am using Numbers and I am coaching a golf team. I created a spreadsheet to track all of my players scores throughout the season. I calculated a handful of averages and data to monitor (overall and match average, putting average, putting average per hole, year best, year worst), but I want to base the position of the player's column on the overall average column. For example, I want the column of the player with the lowest overall average to be furthest to the left, next lowest to the right of him, and so on. Is there a setting that I can do this easily, or can anyone help with a formula for this? It would also work (and may be more simple) if I created a separate table or chart that would order the players in terms of lowest overall average, like a "team leaders" chart or something. Can anyone help?
Thank you very much for your time!
Billyw715

Answer 1

Hi Billy,
Much easier to read.
From your image of the main table, it appears you've rearranged your main table according to Jerry's good advice.
=LOOKUP (SMALL ($OVERALLAVERAGE , ROW()-1) , EHSGOLF 2013 :: $BL)
I see a probable issue with this formula.
You've told numbers to determine the number that would be in the number 1 ( ROW()-1 ) position of a list of the values in the overallaverage column, sorted from smallest to largest, then search for that number in column BL of a specific table, and return it to the cell (B2) containing the formula.
Are the averages listed again in column BL? Or does column BL contain the players' names or other data related to the player?
The first step in solving this is probably to insert a search-where argument into the LOOKUP formula telling it to look in the overall average column:
B2: =LOOKUP (SMALL ($OVERALLAVERAGE , ROW()-1) , $OVERALLAVERAGE, EHSGOLF 2013 :: $BL)
That should solve the immediate issue, but will leave one that's almost certain to arise, as it does in the sample table: Two players in the list have the same overall average.
If you list is of all 13 players, both players with 55.0 averages have the 11th smallest score. LOOKUP looks for the 'closest match that is less than or equal to the search value', and always takes the first on it finds that meets the condition. Since LOOKUP starts it's search from the bottom of the column, the player in the bottom row of the table will be listed for position 11 and 12, and the player in the fifth row above that will not appear on the list.
Resolving those ties is the purpose of using an auxiliary column to add (or subtract) an incrementing index to the overall averages, then letting that column serve as the search-where column.
Details in the post you linked.
Regards,
Barry