While principal deputy press secretary Eric Schultz declined “to get into the mind-set” of the president’s golf habit, he offered that “sports and leisure activities are a good release and clearing of the mind.”

Obama is at the tail end of a two-week vacation on Martha’s Vineyard — punctuated by a two-day return to Washington earlier this week — and is set to return to the White House on Sunday. He is facing criticism for appearing insensitive for following up his Wednesday statement on Foley and the threat that Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant poses to the United States with a trip to Vineyard Golf Club, where he spent the afternoon playing with former NBA star Alonzo Mourning, investor Glenn Hutchins and Cyrus Walker, a cousin of senior adviser Valerie Jarrett.

( Also on POLITICO: Rove grills Obama’s golf ‘mistake’)

But, Schultz said, Foley’s death has “absolutely captured the president’s attention.”

“Just because the president is in a different location doesn’t mean he isn’t doing his job,” he also said, repeating a common refrain that the White House offers when facing criticism about presidential vacations.