He was there the day it happened.

Jake Northrup was walking alongside another club member when their playing partner, local golf legend Terry Reiley, stepped away from his push cart and collapsed on that scorching Memorial Day Saturday at Pennhills Club in 2014.

He remembers that fateful day vividly.

“I was there on the 13th hole when he laid down on the ground,” Northrup said, “and I was like, ‘Hey, Terry, get up … you’re going to get grass stains on your shirt.’ And he didn’t get up.”

Northrup and Doug Atteberri, a Bradford school teacher, called 911. They performed CPR and mouth-to-mouth, but their efforts went for naught. Reiley, a regular in the Men’s Amateur since the early 70s, was soon gone at 57.

One day shy of exactly five years since Reiley’s passing, it remains a morning that stays with Northrup, who still walks this course, and that hole, regularly as the club’s pro.

“I wasn’t supposed to be in that group because his son was supposed to play,” Northrup recalled, “and his son didn’t make it, so I ended up playing. I couldn’t imagine his son being there for that; I still can’t imagine me being there for that.

“It was my daughter’s birthday. I was leaving right after that round to go home (for it). May 24.”

And it remains the motivation for wanting to stage a still-growing and successful tournament in Reiley’s name.

In seven years at Pennhills, Northrup has helped organize a number of high-level tournaments, some of which have allowed for charitable donations of between $10,000 and $20,000.

One of the big events is the Doctor Hermann Ladies Tournament, which in its first year in the fall of 2014, raised enough money to purchase a defibrillator not just for Pennhills but for every golf course in the area. In May of 2017, a Bradford man’s life was saved at Birch Run due, in part, to the availability of the device.

But the one that remains dear to Northrup’s heart is the event dedicated to his friend’s memory: the Terry Reiley Memorial Tournament.

Born in 2015, the tournament was “a hit right from the beginning,” Northrup said. In 2017, organizers celebrated an especially good year. Two weeks earlier, a tornado ripped through the course, leaving 120 fallen trees in its wake; “we had a good event basically because people wanted to come out and see how the course had (handled it).”

Last spring, turnout dipped due to poor weather.

This year, with the help of a beautiful 70-degree day and a format change, Northrup and company were rewarded with their most successful version to date.

“We changed the format to be a best ball twosome instead of an individual game where guys were looking at their scores up in lights,” Northrup noted. “At the beginning of the season, they weren’t really into that. With the two-man, now you have a partner — you can lean on one another.”

Held last Saturday, the fifth annual Terry Reiley Memorial Tournament drew 36 tandems for a high of 72 players, up from 48 last year. Given that number, teams played for a sizable purse (the low gross winners took in nearly $600 between them). And due to just how popular the event has become, here was the best part: It raised $11,000, which was donated to the St. Bonaventure and Pitt-Bradford golf programs.

Everything was done with Reiley, perhaps Bradford’s most notable golfing export, in mind.

“Because Terry himself was just a big proponent of youth golf,” said Northrup, an Ellicottville resident and 1994 graduate. “A lot of the kids who are now our members used to play high school for Terry. He just had a big influence on this small community golf-wise, and it shows with the support that we’ve gotten (particularly from tournament promoters Norm Strotman and Eric Penfield).

“This format is definitely going to be the format to stay, and next year we’re hoping for an even bigger event.”

The decision to donate the proceeds to the local collegiate golf programs was an easy one.

Northrup has a strong relationship with Bona coach Ryan Swanson and UPB’s Keith Stauffer, the latter of whom was among the field on Saturday. Pitt-Bradford also now plays its home matches at Pennhills.

On the course, it appeared as though fate might intervene.

For much of the day, Chris Reiley, Terry’s son, had the individual lead; he finished with an impressive round of 68, placing second behind Rich Bollendor’s 67.  

“We thought he was going to win it,” said Northrup, who noted that low gross winners were Chris Blocher and Bollendor, who combined for a 63, “… that his dad was going to have some divine intervention.”

Thinking back to that unfortunate day — May 24, 2014 — Northrup can’t say for sure if having an available defibrillator before first responders arrived would have made a difference. But he’s happy to know that the resulting fundraiser has helped to save at least one other golfer’s life.

And he’s thankful that he can help honor someone who had such a profound influence, not only in the area, but Northrup himself.

“From the minute I welcome everybody before we shotgun the event, we just talk about and remember Terry,” he said. “(Reiley) was on the hiring committee that hired me when I came in for my first interview.  

“He just loved the game and it was infectious, and I just loved being around people like that. Right away, I said, ‘man this is the kind of guy you want in your corner.’ I knew he was struggling with his health, but he wasn’t a complainer. But for whatever reason, he was taken early.”