Golfing is a great sport because it can be played by people of all ages and gets you outdoors for exercise and social interaction with friends and business colleagues. But it can also be a frustrating game because of the difficulty of hitting that little white ball with any degree of consistency.

One of the most frustrating problems most golfers face is the tendency to "slice" the ball. Usually the slice develops after the beginning golfer has started to hit the ball reasonably well and a fairly good distance. That's when the dreaded slice rears its ugly head.

Slicing happens when a right handed golfer hits the ball so it has a horrible curve to the right, or a left handed golfer hits it so it curves to the left. As any reasonably knowledgeable golfer will tell you, the slice is the result of "coming across" the ball with an "outside in" swing. As the club sweeps across the ball, the club strikes the ball in a slightly "open" position. This action puts sidespin on the ball and as it moves through the air it curves to the right (or left for a lefty).

In many sports curving the ball like this is an important part of the game. Ping pong and tennis players, for instance, want the ball to curve as it approaches their opponent and then bounce off the paddle or racquet at an odd angle making it more difficult for the opponent to control the return.

But in golf a slice is almost always a negative thing the golfer wants to get rid of. That's because a slicing shot doesn't go as far because of the energy lost by the spinning, curving ball. The result is even worse in windy conditions where the increased wind resistance exaggerates the effects of sidespin.

In spite of all the magical cures touted in magazine articles and golf videos, the only way to cure a slice is to learn to hit the ball correctly - with a square club face that is moving on a natural arc from slightly inside the line of flight.

It takes most golfers years and thousands of practice shots to learn how to do this. That's because there is such a natural tendency to begin the swing by throwing the shoulders out at the ball. That gets the club head out there on the wrong side of the target line of flight - on the "outside" - and the only way to actually hit the ball from that position is to bring the club head back inside at an angle to the intended line of flight. That's what is meant by "coming across" the ball.

Most beginning golfers have a difficult time understanding and visualizing this process. They think they are swinging on a perfectly square line straight through the ball and down the intended line of flight. But an experienced golfer who has already learned all about slices from his own struggles with the game can usually tell an inside out swing from 50 or 100 yards away without even watching the club head at all. There are certain moves that are so typical of a slice that they can be picked up almost immediately by an experienced observer.

This is where a good golf instructor or an instruction program comes into play. Nine times out of ten the most effective way to cure your slice or almost any other swing problem in golf is get back to the basics. You have to unlearn the swing you currently use that’s causing the problem and learn the correct swing path, tempo, and speed so you can develop consistency.