Golf tournament sports a new logo

The floundering golf tournament that was once heaven for Hogan and sacrosanct for Snead wants to be a major player again. To get there, the Northern Trust Open has left it to the Logo.

It has been a busy week for Jerry West, and it has only just begun.

Monday night, Kobe Bryant put West front and center in the news by topping his Lakers all-time scoring record. It was one supernatural athlete surpassing another.

The rest of this week, West will be working his miracles in another sport, along the fairways and in the hospitality tents at legendary Riviera Country Club.

The man whose dribbling image has been adopted by the NBA as the trademark of its league has been adopted by this once prestigious PGA Tour stop to make it so again.

Nine months ago, the 71-year-old West agreed to become executive director of the Northern Trust Open.

“I was a retired person, just out there being a bum,” says West, whose work in the Lakers’ front office, after his all-pro career, had a lot to do with how good the team is today. “I took this on and figured it would be a couple of days a week.”

West, of course, has never done anything part time or halfway. Nor did Northern Trust officials expect him to.

In short order, the Logo was everywhere, preaching the tournament, selling Riviera. There were speeches, appearances, meetings. Broadcaster Jim Hill was there with a microphone and West was ready and willing. Mom and pop had a bake sale in Long Beach and West was ready and willing.

“Life is about passion,” West says. “You lose that, you lose everything.”

No worries about that with West and his efforts to return the Northern Trust to the prominence and stature it had in the years that Ben Hogan made Riviera Hogan’s Alley and Sam Snead revered both the tournament and the course.

“Years ago,” West said, “Snead told me this was a must-play event.”

Years ago, West was probably good enough to play in it. Fitting golf only occasionally into his hectic basketball schedule, West was a scratch player and, were he to take the necessary time with the game today, he would probably still be a five or six handicapper.

But his focus is on a bigger picture.

“Our hope,” he says, “is to grow this tournament back into what it used to be.”

Like the world in general, there is so much else going on in golf these days that tradition gets trampled. Hogan and Snead competed for thousands, and had to scramble to find enough places to do that. Today’s pro competes for millions and picks and chooses from many options. Of the 42 regular tour events -- not including the four majors -- only a handful offer prize money below $6 million. Northern Trust, which has signed on as title sponsor through 2012, offers a purse of $6.4 million.

So the lure of walking the fairways at a place where Hollywood stars once mingled with players and the famous clubhouse overlooking No. 18 got more movie credits than Brad Pitt is tempered somewhat by the chance to rest up for the $8.5-million Accenture Match Play in two weeks.

Still, the Northern Trust has identified its problems and hitched its wagon to West to tackle them.

Michael Yamaki, Riviera’s managing corporate officer, says a major measure of a tour tournament’s success is the amount of money generated for charity.

“We were getting to be among the lowest,” he says. “It was an embarrassment.”

He says he has had players tell him in recent years that, when making their schedules, they felt they could pass on Riviera because “it just didn’t feel big anymore.”

This year’s event, while not the Masters, certainly feels bigger.

Phil Mickelson is back to try for a third consecutive title. That would be a first in the 84-year history of the event, and would top the likes of Hogan and Arnold Palmer. Snead won twice, but not in consecutive years.

Mickelson is ranked No. 2 in the world and Steve Stricker, No. 3, also will play, as will 15 winners of major titles.

“We don’t want just people from the west side of L.A. coming to watch,” West says. “We want to attract from all over.”

At least a handful of the top players were recruited personally by West. Tradition may not count as much anymore, and money still speaks the loudest.

But no matter who you are, or how big you are, it’s not easy to say no to the Logo.

bill.dwyre@latimes.com