Calling golfers and bowlers athletes is an insult to real athletes.
[video=youtube]http://youtube.com/watch?v=3pfy7xH-YtY[/video]
Does this feat make this man an athlete? Is he displaying athleticism?
If you routinely crumple up a piece of paper and throw it in the trash bin 10 feet away, do you think you're an athlete for that?

Also, bowling and golf are not competitive...NO they aren't. They're comparative.

Scenario; you and your friend Billy go bowling, just the 2 of you. You're in lane 10, Billy is in lane 9. After rolling 30 balls, you get a 250 and Billy gets a 240. Did you defeat him in an athletic competition? Hold on, not so fast. When you started bowling in lane 10, Tom, an utter stranger to you, started bowling in lane 11. When you got a 250, Tom got a 280. Did he defeat you in an athletic competition? Tom's score has as much to do with your score as yours has to do with Billy's. He did better playing the same game, but you weren't competing, because you don't know him and you never agreed to play against one another. That's what bowling and golf are, not competition but arbitrarily agreed upon comparison. When you tell Sam about how you beat Billy in bowling 250 to 240, do you mention how Tom, a person none of you have ever spoken to, beat you 280 to 250?? No... you weren't competing. You bowled, he bowled, one score was higher than the other but both scores were completely independent of one another. Golf is the same game, except people generally share the lane.

What about miniature golf? Is this a sport? An athletic competition? Same as regular golf, just a different scale. Go to your local mini-golf course and observe the players for a spell. Do they strike you as athletic? Is a hole-in-one on that 18th hole where it goes past the windmill and in the clown's mouth, and through the loop a remarkable display of athleticism?

Think about a real athlete, a hockey player for example. Pavel Datsyuk. Someone who constantly lifts weights, does cardio, drills, practices, uses their entire body, hand-eye coordination, reflexes, anticipation, creativity, uses every aspect of their body and mind to compete against others.
Now think about someone who swings a club or throws a ball a few dozen times a day. The same motion. No one is going to jump in their way, knock the ball/club out of their hands, no one is going to run them over and they can take their time because they don't have to score in the next 3 seconds to keep from losing.
You call the second person an athlete, just as you call Datsyuk an athlete? Doing this you devalue the very meaning of the words athlete/athletic/athleticism.

And no, I don't think of Tiger Woods as athletic. He may be, but not for his golfing ability.