Some things are more like a skill and some things are more like a science or art. The activity of finding golf balls is arguably more like a science or art. My reasoning is that many people lose golf balls, and many of these are highly skilled individuals. Their main interest is in hitting a ball towards a very specific target. The more skilled the golfer is the less likely he will lose a golf ball. When a skilled player lose a golf ball this is due to really difficult conditions. The ball is very well hidden in the more obvious places and closer to the shorter grass, and yet it cannot be found. This takes a lot of skill.
On the other hand, a novice and unskilled player loses many more balls and many of these are in well off the preferred places. I should know because I am a very unskilled player and I lose lots of golf balls. But, here's the rub. I find many more golf balls than I lose. In an average game, I will often find more than a golf ball per hole, which sometimes means that I end up with more than another nine or eighteen balls to play on the next round. You might say that I am developing, perhaps unconsciously, the art or science of finding golf balls. I am definitely not developing much in the way of playing golf. Thus, there seems to me to be more in the way of an art and science going on with my game than the development of a golfing skill. That does not mean that I enjoy the game any less, but that I get more pleasure than the average person who only plays to hit a ball in a hole. I play golf to be artistic, to develop the science of finding golf balls inobtrusively, to demonstrate skill in playing the game of golf by getting the ball in the hole with less shots over time.
If we look up the definition of art in the online dictionary, we find that it means "the quality, production, expression, or realm, according to aesthetic principles, of what is beautiful, appealing, or of more than ordinary significance." Another definition is "skill in conducting any human activity." If we look up the definition of skill in the online dictionary, we find that it means "the ability, coming from one's knowledge, practice, aptitude, etc., to do something well." What you immediately notice is that a skill is not necessarily an art. It would seem that an art is a little more than a skill. It would seem that if one is artistic in something, one is skilled in that something. So being an artful golf player would seem to be of a higher order than being a skilled golf player.
Now what would give the game of golf the element of beauty beyond the mere description of skill. In my opinion, one could say that an artful golfer is a golfer that knows not only how to play golf but also how to hit golf balls so that they can can be easily found. It follows that the less artful golfer may hit a ball into the cup, but that only makes him skilled at golf. To be artful at golf in the way I am describing one must not only hit the ball into the cup, one must also know how to lose the ball in a beautiful or appealing way. Its best, of course, if one doesn't lose a golf ball at all, but if one is destined to lose the ball, one should have a bit of taste in the way one goes about it.
Because I have mastered the art of finding a golf ball, I believe that I am a more artful golfer, not by definition but as a consequence of having developing a finding skill, which I would think is very much more like an art and science than a skill. When I lose my golf ball in an artful way it is so well hidden that I can never find it, but in the process find many other golf balls that were hit in much less artful ways.
The beauty in losing a ball comes from the impact that it makes when others observe you losing the ball. One of the most dramatic ways to lose a ball, is to hit it into a lake or pond. It makes much more of an impression on the observer if one does this within a few feet of the pond. That would seem illogical, but remember that art and skill don't really have that much in common.
Now what am I really driving at when talking about losing one's balls, is the problem that many reviewers of art have with images they are viewing on a canvas. To realize that to be artistic does not necessarily mean that you need to be skilled is to realize that a really good painting does not really have to demonstrate very much in the way of skill. It is enough that it create a slash much like a golf ball plunking in a lake for it to be good art.