One of the beauties of the game is that it tests you even when you don't know you're being tested -- and I think the subtlest and least-often-recognized such tests involve the short game.
That's because over the course of a week's play, on well contoured greens with 4 different pin positions on each of the 18 holes, even good players will have a hard time consistently identifying/recognizing the 'good miss', let alone actually missing there, where they want to miss it, all of the time.
Which means that over a week's play (or a month's play at your home course) every golfer -- pro or scratch or mid handicapper -- will have many more than a few 'bad misses' to deal with, e.g. putts from above the hole at the 12th on a Monday, an explosion shot from the left side bunker at the 5th on a Tuesday, a chip from behind the 18th green on a Wednesday.
The short game 'variables' on a well-designed course seem almost endless, and they change everyday; the golfers with the lowest handicaps, those who score well day-in and day-out, are those who not only have many 'good misses' every day but who also, and I think more importantly, are able to best handle and overcome their many 'bad misses' on a daily basis.
AG's post resonated with me because, when I think of the few times now that I've shot in the 70s, I can't really tell you why/how I did it, i.e. I don't think I hit that many more fairways or greens than I do when I shoot 84 or 88 or 92. What must be happening, I think, is that a) I've inadvertently had more 'good misses' than normal, and b) that while I've had my usual/average number of (unrecognized) 'bad misses', I somehow managed to handle those 6 or 7 mishaps in 6-7 shots instead of 12-14.