If your handicap is below 18, it will be rounded to the closest whole number and then you will be penalized with strokes until it totals 18 (therby kinda turning you into an 18 handicapper and in line with what The MGA believes a mediocre golfer should be).
EXAMPLE 1: Jon is a 11.6 handicap. He thinks he's so fucking cool with his long drives and fancy putter. Well here in the MGA, we put him in his place. His 11.6 handicap is rounded up to 12, then we subtract that from 18 to see how many penalty strokes we'll add onto his score after the round. (The answer is 6 in this case, but you knew that right?)
EXAMPLE 2: Willie is a 20.4 handicap. He's just an honest, hard-working mediocre golfer, trying to reach that perfect 18 handicap mark. Since he's not there yet, he has no penalty strokes and at the end of the day, his score is what it is. No penalties, but no help either for being worse than 18. Gotta earn it Willie! Hit the range.
Don't try and overcomplicate this. The course slope and rating don't change anything in the MGA. If a dude shows up for an MGA tourney and the site says he has 4 penalty strokes, then add 4 strokes to his score at the end of his round and that's his score for the tourney. Simple.
NO MATTER HOW MANY PENALTY STROKES YOU ARE CARRYING, A 79 OR BETTER WILL DISQUALIFY YOU FROM ANY MGA EVENT. WHY? ARE YOU REALLY ASKING WHY? BECAUSE OBVIOUSLY SHOOTING IN THE 70'S IS NOT MEDIOCRE AND YOU SHOULD BE PRACTICING FOR THE NEXT WEB.COM TOUR MONDAY QUALIFIER INSTEAD OF CLUBBING BABY SEALS IN THE MGA.