As most of us know, the slice is probably the most common fault in all of golf, particularly for the recreational player. Though that fact isn’t particularly surprising, what is surprising is how long people are willing to struggle before seeking a legitimate method of eradicating the slice from their game.

We’ve all experienced this one time or another. Midway through the round, after hitting what seems to be a decent number of fairways, the ball starts to slice. And not only does the ball begin creeping to the right, the slice becomes more and more pronounced with each swing. This then causes the body to tense up and limit the needed rotation of the hands through the impact zone. Now that’s an awful thought, isn’t it?

Body alignment is one of two key setup elements most frequently changed by amateur golfers (the other is ball position). Because players often associate the alignment of their upper body with the starting direction of the ball off the clubface, they tend to incorrectly alter their alignment for a variety of reasons, the most common of which is to compensate for a chronic pull slice. While the logic of aiming the torso further left to prevent hitting the ball to the right may appear sound at first, this faulty compensation actually causes more harm than good in the long term.

No matter how fundamentally superior the swings of the world’s best players are to those belonging to the rest of us, there has never been, nor is it likely will there ever be, a golf swing without at least one flaw.

The majority of recreational golfers, and even some better players, suffer from chronic slicing. Anyone who has experienced this problem knows how frustrating it can be and how difficult it can be to overcome.

Here we go again. Yes, another “fix your slice” feature, which says a lot about the banana ball—it’s not going away. For some golfers, that left-to-right ballflight never seems to disappear, and for those new to the game, it represents the first true taste of golf-related frustration. While I’m sure you’ve heard your fair share of anti-slice tips, this story approaches fixing a slice in unique fashion. Position by position, I’ll compare the components of a solid swing to those typically associated with a slice, plus a corresponding fix.

If you can’t hit your woods off the tee—or when you do hit them, the ball slices uncontrollably—chances are that your downswing is too steep. The reason this occurs is that the clubface can’t return to square when it comes down so vertically, and the open clubface creates a slice.

There’s only one thing that can cause a slice, and that’s a clubface that’s either open (or opening) at the point of contact. That being said, here are three tips to help you square up the clubface and rid your game of that slice forever!