How do Professional Indoor Lawn Bowlers on Youtube take their Stare Point?

About five years ago, when I was spending January-March in Australia, I visited one of those bowl stores that had an indoor rink for trying out new bowls. When I went to deliver a test bowl, I discovered that the carpet was so perfect that I couldn’t pick out a physical spot 3-5 metres in front of the mat that I could use as a stare point. I had to stretch my neck up from my crouch and try to take a line from objects near the front ditch.

I have since been asking myself the question, “How do professional bowlers playing on the portable rink pick a stare point?” They are playing on a perfect carpet so they must face the same problem that I did at the sporting goods store.

The video camera positions for major bowls competitions do not help answer that question. There is rarely a camera shot from behind a bowler while he is executing a delivery. Finally, I saw such an angle. I show a screen capture below.

The bowler is Alex Marshall MBE. I don’t know how the picture was taken. It is not one of the usual camera angles.  It looks like the Scottish Championship, perhaps, since I can see tables near the side ditch. 

The angle reveals two interesting things. First, because the top bowlers use wide-swinging bowls, their stare points are on the billboards along the sides of the rink. Second, it looks like the fact that the advertisements have alternate light-coloured and dark-coloured backgrounds is important for providing highly visible stare points.

For example, in this image, it looks as if Alex is setting his aim line on to the Dales advertisement far down the rink that appears in the upper right corner of this picture.

How appropriate those semi-circular, multicoloured target shapes that appear to be the perennial decoration on the side barriers at these bowling venues turn out to be!