• With his victory 12 months ago, Y E Yang became the third Korean-born player to win on The European Tour International Schedule, following K J Choi (2003 German Masters) and Charlie Wi (2006 Maybank Malaysian Open).
• No less than 40 winners from The 2007 European Tour International Schedule are competing in the 2008 HSBC Champions, between them winning 45 events from the 2007 season.
• To highlight the strength of the field, six Major Champions are playing. They are: Angel Cabrera, Ernie Els, Retief Goosen, Padraig Harrington, Phil Mickelson and Vijay Singh.
• Retief Goosen will be trying to extend the current European Tour record of most consecutive winning seasons to ten, stretching back to the 1999 season.
