This was a "proverb" that someone giving me a teaching game related to me the other night at the Twin Cities Go Club.
The average golf hole has a par of 4. Half of those strokes are usually putts. Half of golf is in the final 10 feet of the hole.
Go is similar. Many points can be lost or gained in the endgame. Just as golf can be won or lost on the basis of your putting abilities, go can be won or lost on your yose skills.
Fhayashi: Hmm, so do you fuseki for show, and yose for dough?
Andrew W: Flippant as your comment may be, I suspect for a pro the answer is "very much so, yes". From what little I can tell (and in Japanese pro practice more than Korean), many games are decided in the big endgame - where one player just has slightly less bad aji than their counterpart, and this is converted into a two point win.
Bob: In golf, on a par four hole, in order to have two putts to make par you have to get on the green in two shots. So you'd better have a good drive and good iron shots. That seems to translate into go as in order to win in the endgame you've got to stay in the game through the opening and middle game. Of course you need good endgame skills, but in order to make them count you've got to have good opening and middle game skills, too.