SC couple spotted at Open Championship in Scotland. The Gamecock hat gave it away

Thousands of Open Championship fans wended their way into the huge merchandise building just off Royal Troon’s third fairway. Jeff and Sande Campbell were easy to identify as South Carolinians — by Jeff’s “Carolina Gamecocks” baseball cap.

The couple from Lexington is here as part of a month-long “bucket list” trip that included 10 days in Ireland before coming to the Glasgow area. “We left July Fourth, head back to Dublin and then home (July 23),” he said.

Jeff is no ordinary USC fan. He works in the university’s School of Hospitality and Retail Management. An Indiana native (Sande hails from Pennsylvania), he met his future wife at a conference in Texas and moved to South Carolina just over 13 years ago.

Sande said she wanted this trip for her January birthday, and this month they made it happen.

“We both wanted to come to Ireland, and my family’s heritage is Scottish — obviously with a name like Campbell — and her family is, too,” he said. “We’ve been to all the tourist spots: Glasgow, Edinburg, Waterford — we hit the crystal stores.

“And we’re both golf fans. We were at the U.S. Open in Pinehurst (in June) and we both grew up watching (Jack) Nicklaus, and now we’re both Rory (McIlroy) fans. We would like to see the Americans do well, too,” with Justin Thomas and Scottie Scheffler among their favorites.

Around 250,000 fans are expected to attend this year’s tournament at Royal Troon Golf Club .

The Campbells’ plans were to spend two days at The Open, and then take in other sights and do some shopping. “Being retailers, we like to look at the retail shops,” he said. “The goal (at the Open) is to sell as much merchandise as possible in a short period of time.”

“There’s a tie between sports, retail, entertainment and hospitality,” Sande said. “We’d like to take what we see back to USC.”

Golf-wise, “it’s fun to see how the Americans fare in this weather,” Jeff said as the dark clouds began spitting rain again. “And links golf is different. We stopped to watch a few players trying to get out of those pot bunkers — it’s amazing how deep they are.”

All in all, both said, their hopes of a memorable “bucket list” trip were being fulfilled, despite the weather.

“We’re lucky to be able to do this,” Jeff said.