Duggan Rolls Up the Miles, and the Strikes : Bowling: La Habra resident packs up the motor home travels for about 40 weeks a year on the professional tour.

Anne Marie Duggan was away from home again, although home for her these days is wherever she finds a professional bowling tournament.

This time, Duggan is on the phone from Las Vegas, where she is competing in a Western Women’s Pro Bowlers Assn. tournament that concludes today at the Santa Fe Hotel.

“I tell you, maybe I can find a motor home manufacturer who wants to pay me for advertising his product. I spend so much time on the road,” Duggan said.

Maybe she can, cruising along America’s highways in a sort of billboard on wheels to yet another event and, she hopes, another paycheck.

As one of the rising stars of the Ladies’ Pro Bowlers Tour, Duggan competes on the 22-tournament national tour each season and in regional events that keep her on the road for about 40 weeks each year.

And while others on the tour choose different modes of transportation, Duggan and her husband and coach, Pat, make the trips in their 33-foot motor home with a Ford Bronco in tow. The payload includes 30 bowling balls and many pairs of bowling shoes.

“The lanes vary so much across the country,” said Duggan, who makes her off-season home in La Habra. “I need the different balls and the shoes to accommodate the lanes.”

Duggan, 29, says traveling by motor home saves money.

“The sport can be expensive, especially for a new bowler,” she said. “You have entry fees at every tournament. You have to stay in a hotel. You have to fly if you don’t drive. It can be $600 to $800 a week. That’s why we need to get more corporate sponsors. The only kind of people who get sponsors are the ones who know somebody with a lot of money to throw away.”

Making a living as a pro bowler is indeed a tough challenge for the women. The prize money at the tournaments is not comparable to the men’s tour, where a first-place check can be as high as $35,000.

On the women’s tour, the richest tournament is the Sam’s Town Invitational, held in November at Las Vegas, which awards the champion about $20,000 of a $115,000 purse. From there, the amounts drop dramatically to the point at which bowlers must consistently finish in the top 10 at each tournament to stay in the black.

But luckily for Duggan, her income has improved considerably the past few months.

After 14 LPBT tournaments this season, Duggan ranks second in earnings with $40,140 to Tish Johnson’s $59,085. And her 10-year career earnings, which she hopes to increase during the final eight events of the season when the tour resumes in August, are $224,727. Additionally, Duggan receives a promotional stipend from Brunswick Corp., which also provides her equipment, and from Masters Industries, an Irvine firm that manufactures bowling products.

Still, Duggan feels the pressure of making the cut every week; of claiming a good chunk of the purse.

“I try to bowl as much as I can when I’m not on the tour,” Duggan said. “I like to bowl all the tournaments. I look for the positives about every place I go to, even when they might not be the most desirable. I try not to be too picky. For the kind of money we bowl for, we don’t have that luxury. But I like to bowl the most in the South, in Florida and Texas and Louisiana because we (women’s tour) have a strong following there. My favorite house, though, is Fountain Bowl. It’s been good to me.”

That was particularly true in May, 1991.

During the women’s U.S. Open at the Fountain Valley lanes, Duggan worked her way up from the fifth-seeded position in the stepladder finals to win the tournament with a 196-185 victory over top-seeded Leanne Barrette of Oklahoma City. Duggan strung together three impressive games to get to Barrette.

In her first match of the final session, Duggan had nine strikes and beat Cheryl Daniels, 219-195. She followed with a 247-235 victory over Sandra Jo Shiery, rolling seven consecutive strikes in one stretch, and then defeated Jeanne Maiden, 244-236. The victory over Barrette gave her $16,000 and her third national pro title.

“That’s my biggest win and the most memorable for me because of the recognition I got from it and because I won it in my home area,” said Duggan, who finished third this year in the same tournament. “In the Open, everything just clicked together.”

And they have ever since.

Although she has won only one tournament this year, the Yuba City Open in February, Duggan leads the tour in competition points with 7,735, nearly 200 points ahead of Johnson, of Panorama City. She ranks third in match-play winning percentage with 57.1% and is fourth with a 210.8 average. When it comes to consistency, Duggan holds her own.

That has been the case since early in her career.

Duggan, who with her four sisters was raised in Cypress, started bowling seriously when she was 16. Her name then was Anne Marie Pike, and she played volleyball and basketball at Kennedy High. But her parents, both avid bowlers, encouraged her to try the sport. She quickly developed a knack for the game.

“My mom (Carol) was a pretty good bowler. She even had a couple of 300 games,” said Duggan, who has bowled eight perfect games. “But she had all the kids and that made it kind of hard to pursue the sport professionally. She’s starting to get back into bowling again.”

While her mom was the better bowler, Duggan said her father (Robert), who was watching her compete in Las Vegas this weekend (she qualified eighth Saturday and advanced to today’s semifinals), could tell what sport suited the girls best.

“My dad was pretty good at picking up what sports we did well in and tried to kind of point us in that direction,” Duggan said. “For me, bowling is what I did the best. When I first started, my father told me I could be one of the very best bowlers in the world if I wanted to be. Of course, that was my dad talking, but it gave me a lot of confidence.”

The confidence and natural ability helped establish Duggan as one of the premier junior bowlers in the country. She was a three-time member of the Southern California Junior All-Star team and was named the Southern California junior bowler of the year in 1981. Two years later, she became the only LPBT player to win her first professional competition, in Houston, on the tour and capped the season by being named rookie of the year.

But even with all that success, Duggan looks back at those years and wonders how much more she could have achieved with a little more motivation and commitment.

“I wish I had dedicated myself to the sport then like I’m now,” Duggan said. “Everything came real easy for me when I started, so I took a lot of things for granted.”

Duggan said her mental approach to the game changed three years ago when she married Pat. The two met at a party given by the owner of a bowling center and they have been virtually inseparable since. Duggan said it changed her life for the better.

“A lot of my success has to do with my husband,” she said. “The year before I won the (U.S.) Open is when I really started dedicating myself to bowling, with Pat’s help. He keeps reminding me of the goals I want to reach. His main influence with me has been the mental game. I’ve developed a lot more respect for the sport. I take it a lot more seriously.”

Part of her new commitment, Duggan said, includes watching her diet. At 5 feet 8 and 125 pounds, Duggan would like to bowl at a slightly heavier weight to gain more stamina, so she drinks protein shakes and takes amino acids to stay in shape. But even at her slight build, Duggan figures she’ll be able to compete for many more seasons.

“My best asset is probably that I’m a pretty natural bowler,” Duggan said. “I have a pretty easy style that I hope will last me a long time. I have a straight-arm swing and I have a fast hand, which allows me to get a lot of rotation on the ball.”

If she remains healthy and competitive, Duggan and her husband will get plenty more use out of their motor home the next few years. But Duggan says that, at least now, the road isn’t such a lonely place.

“It’s been easier to handle since I’ve been married because I’m on the road with somebody I want to be with,” Duggan said. “And I feel fortunate that I’ve seen a lot of the country.”