Excel MATCH to sum of two cell values

Question

I have a table of data that include a name column and two numeric columns. Example:

  A      B   C
Fred     4   2
Sam      3   6
George   1   7

I'm wanting to retrieve the name in column A for the largest sum of columns B and C. In the example above, I would want "Sam" because 3+6 is greater than any of the other sums.

I know I could create a hidden column (D) that's filed with

=SUM(B2,C2)

and do something like this:

=INDEX(A:A,MATCH(MAX(D:D),D:D,0))

but I'd rather avoid the hidden column, if possible. Is there a way to perform an index-match based on the sum of two cells?

Answer 1

Use the array formula :

=INDEX(A:A,MATCH(MAX((B:B)+(C:C)),(B:B)+(C:C),0))

Array formulas must be entered with Ctrl + Shift + Enter rather than just the Enter key.

(Note the appearance of braces in the formula bar)