​”The Best Logos in Golf” sets out to create a defensible list.GOLFWhat are you wearing?That’s not a come-on. It’s a serious question. This inquiring golfer would like to know.If you’re headed to the course, odds are you’re cloaked in something with a logo. A hat. A shirt. A belt. Maybe all of the above. If you’re a Tour pro, you’re probably plastered with more emblems than a NASCAR jumpsuit. Brands pay handsomely for your support.For most golfers, it’s the other way around. We pay for the privilege of wearing logos. Through pro shops, merch tents and online drops, we’re eager participants in an industry that has grown into a multibillion-dollar machine.Money talks, as do the logos people buy. What they say is another matter. Consider golf club logos — an obsessively niche corner of the market — and the many messages they convey.“(A) golf club logo is rarely a mere ornament,” the veteran golf journalist George Peper writes in his engaging forthcoming book, “The Best Logos in Golf” (to be published this fall by Back Nine Press). “It carries memory, identity and meaning. Sometimes it serves as an invitation; at others, a barrier — or even a passport.”When they aren’t opening doors, inspiring conversation, arousing envy, admiration or irritation, club logos, of course, are often sparking debates and spawning rankings.Who doesn’t love a best-of list?Peper is no stranger to such rosters. In the 1980s, as the editor-in-chief of GOLF, he oversaw the launch of the magazine’s Top 100 Courses in the World franchise, a ranking that imposed no strict criteria for greatness. Ballots were tallied by tabulating numbers, but those numbers were rooted in personal taste.To generate his list of logos, Peper employed a similar system, albeit with a smaller electorate. Only four people had a vote — the author and three “logomaniac” friends — though they worked from a ballot of 225 candidates, which itself was compiled with input from well-traveled golfers on both sides of the Atlantic, social media forums and magazine pieces.The result is less a ranking than it is a roundup, and with good reason. As Peper concedes, there’s no meaningful distinction between the 63rd and 64th greatest logos, so why pretend? In lieu of a precise pecking order, he arranges the logos in tiers — 1 through 10, 11-20, 21-30, and on. Is Chicago Golf Club’s logo better than Kittansett’s? Peper doesn’t say. But he puts them both in the same bucket. Objectivity is not the objective. Peper isn’t after the definitive list, only a defensible one.His defense rests on traits that he says separate “the best from the rest.” Beyond “design quality,” these include “distinctiveness,” “timelessness,” “simplicity” and “versatility.” Does it look as cool on the scorecard as it does on the security gate?“Backstory” is another consideration, and it’s a biggie. Above all, the book is an entertaining excuse for Peper to tell