House vs. house: Loser pays rent at Charles Schwab Challenge

FORT WORTH, Texas — There’s a tournament at the Charles Schwab Challenge that isn’t on the leaderboard. The stakes are as big as a house.

Eight players who often travel and stay together rented two four-bedroom properties near Colonial Country Club. They couldn’t settle on who would stay with whom, so they appointed Brendon Todd and Chris Kirk as captains and drafted teams through their group text.

“And it turned into a match,” said Sepp Straka. “House on house.”

To the victors go these spoils: rent. The losing team pays for the winning team’s house.

“A lot riding on it,” Todd said. “A lot of pride as well.”

Straka has Kirk, J.T. Poston and Ben Kohles. Todd has Harris English, Denny McCarthy and Greyson Sigg. Most of the players went to Georgia, but the competition includes two players who went to Virginia (Kohles and McCarthy) and one (Poston) from Western Carolina. They’re counting the lowest three scores for the first two rounds. They’re counting the two lowest scores on the weekend.

“I think we’ve got the better team,” Straka boasted. “We’ll see.”

He spoke those words Thursday after a 2-under 68, which put him squarely in a tie with Todd. Poston also shot 68.

Advantage Team Kirk.

English was at 1 under. McCarthy was even. The rest of the players were still on the course, sweating through a hot and muggy afternoon.

Lots of golf left.

The competition typically might include another Georgia Bulldog in Brian Harman. But Harman brought his family, eliminating him from consideration.

Missed opportunity. Harman shot 66.

"I'll let them play their … whatever they’ve got going," he said.

“We’ve been looking forward to this week for a while,” said Todd, noting that this is the “first edition” of the house-on-house.

It might not be the last.