I'm a firm believer in this.
On one of our local courses, there is a treacherous par 3 (hole #13). It's not long, but the green is angled from back left to front right, narrow, and has a gully and a bunker on the left-hand side. The bunker is a round-saver, because the steep gully is death. Period. There is a small bit of smooth, almost fairway-like grass in front of the green short and to the right.
It's a six-iron for me to the center of the green, which is where the flag was cut one day when I wasn't playing very well. As I stood on the tee looking at the hole, I made a command decision to lay-up on a par 3. Yep, not a typo. I decided to lay-up. The round had fallen off the rails enough already, and I didn't really need a double-bogey at that point in time.
So I pull a 7-iron and aim at the right front of the green, with the idea of getting the ball onto that safe area, chipping up, hopefully having a putt at par and walking off with bogey as the worst-case scenario.
I don't need to tell the rest of the story, right? Pulled the 7, put a nice, smooth swing on it with the idea of laying up; ball ends up pin high, 11 feet right of the flag, lipped the birdie putt and had a tap-in par.