This will help you improve golf's key fundamental — and it's easy to practice

Earlier this week, I talked to a regular golfer who went from a 10 handicap to a 1 handicap in less than two years. When I asked him what he works on in his golf swing, he responded simply: making crisp, ball-first contact.

It's an important point, one good coaches emphasize often, and something the rest of us tend to overlook.

Sure, hitting your ball in your intended direction is important. But you can still play decent golf hitting the ball crooked, provided your misses aren't too off the planet and you've got some short game skills to cover the gaps. But what you can't do is mix in a bunch of contact errors: chunks and tops, thins if you're lucky, shanks if you're not.

Those are the disaster shots that stain your round and rattle your confidence. Hitting the ball with solid, consistent contact will help golfers of every level improve. Simply put, it's a basic that will give you something to work with.

That's why Golf Digest Top 50 Teacher Trillium Rose recommends using this drill whenever you feel the quality of your contact slipping—especially for shorter shots and chips.

Editor's Note: If you're looking for more helpful advice from Trillium, you can check her Golf Digest Schools series right here.

"Contact is the most important part of the swing," she writes. "It’s everything actually. How good is yours?"

It's pretty simple to do, here's how it works.

Shift your weight forward

One of the most common causes of bad contact comes from poor weight transfer. When you keep too much weight on your trail side as you swing through, your hands tend to get flippy, and the bottom of your golf swing moves around. Sometimes you'll hit the ground first and hit the ball fat; other times, you'll hit too high on the ball and catch it thin.

So, to avoid this, Trillium says to set up to the golf ball as you normally would, then to drop your trail foot slightly back behind you, and lift your heel off the ground. Begin making half swings, and you'll soon move your weight and pressure more onto your front foot as you swing — the place you want it at impact.

A few swings like this, and it'll bring the low point of your golf swing past the ball, and help you make crispier contact along the way.

You can watch the full video below: