Golf: summer analyst style

No

this is about as close as you're going to get my friend. you can play audio tracks of chirping birds in the background like i do to really make it feel like you're out on the course

http://members.shaw.ca/faithshannon/mini-golf-swf.htm

You can hit up the driving ranges at Chelsea Piers pretty regularly (weekly).

you are dangerously close to my name!

On a similar note, are there some decent, relatively cheap (cheap probably being most important at this point), public courses around NYC? And how hard is it to get onto a course like Bethpage Black? (I know at the very least that you have to be a NY resident to reserve a tee time, but that shouldn't be a problem)

There are a couple public courses in the 5 boroughs. Bethpage Black might be hard, but there are other decent ones if you head out to long island or up to rockland/westchester.