Welcome to Play Smart, a regular GOLF.com game-improvement column that will help you play smarter, better golf.

Want to make more birdies? You better be able to make some putts. Sure, solid approach play is part of the equation, but if you can’t roll in the putt, it’s all for naught.

If you want to become a solid putter, it’s important you focus on a few main components. You need to be able to read the greens correctly, start the ball on your intended line and have the right speed. If any one of these elements is off, it becomes exceedingly difficult to hole putts.

For the purposes of this column, we are going to focus on the first element — reading putts. And for more on that, we turn to putting guru Ralph Bauer.

How to correctly read greens
Green-reading is an art that takes lots of practice to master, and it won’t happen overnight. You’ve got to put in the work if you want to become a great green-reader.

Everyone has their own method for green-reading. Some people like to rely on their feet, while others like to rely on their eyes. And for those who rely on their eyes, they all have different angles from which they like to read greens (behind the ball, behind the hole, etc.).

According to Bauer, there’s one spot that’s better than the rest for getting the correct read.

“Think of a triangle; I’m looking uphill halfway between the ball and the hole,” Bauer says. “If I went to the other side, it would appear on average 25 percent flatter.”

Bauer explains that he ran this experiment with 100 golfers, and for 90 of them reading the putt from the side angle halfway between the ball and the hole was the best method.

“Do you want to go and do a complete 360 and see different perceptions of the slope and get confused?” Bauer says. “If I’m looking uphill, that’s going to be the best perspective I have to judge the slope.”