Labels can stick forever, if you wait too long to shed them.

Last year, Anthony Kim rid himself of the "Not Serious" label he earned as a rookie when he treated the PGA Tour as if it were a travelling frat party. He started choosing a bucket of balls over beer and actually going to the gym.

As a result, he began living up to another label - "The Next Tiger Woods" -  with two victories, eight Top 10 finishes and a rousing contribution to the U.S. triumph in the Ryder Cup. He won $4,656,266 in earnings, good enough for sixth overall. (Until then, the only things he had in common with the world's best golfer were an Asian genealogy and the ability to hit the ball a ton.)

Now, though, Kim is trying to avoid another potential label - "Underachiever."

Nagging injuries are partly to blame for an '09 now mired in a slump. Kim has finished in the Top 10 only once in 11 events and in so doing gained another label - "Conundrum."

He's third among all players in birdies per round (4.41) but 146th in scoring average (71.54). He's hit exactly half of fairways (184th) and less that two-thirds of greens in regulation (145th).

What does it all say? He's scrambling like a banshee, making something out of nothing, it seems. Just not enough to get back in contention.

Which is why Kim has not discarded one label: "Cocky."

"It's coming along," he told the Patriot-News last week. "I know my game is getting better."

Bethpage Black, site of the U.S. Open this week, will test that belief, though it is also the kind of venue that fuels the likes of Kim, who may be the face of a generation on tour that was weened on Tiger but haven't yet had their brains beaten out by him. They admired and emulated him, some adopting his habits and some his strut.

They see him more as an ideal than a nightmare. They seem to relish the thought of  facing him on a Sunday in a major, and don't hear soft-cleat footsteps when he's charging.

"I want it all," he told Sports Illustrated last year. "I'm a man of the people. I want to help kids. want to be Number 1, to win majors, and I want to be the baddest person on the planet."

Right now, at least on the PGA Tour, that label is taken.

Just not permanently,  Kim hopes.