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President Barack Obama is spending the holiday weekend working on his golf game in Southern California.

Obama arrived in the desert resort area of Palm Springs on Saturday morning after a short flight from San Francisco.

Following an airport welcome from Mayor Steve Pougnet, Obama went straight to the golf course on the grounds of the Sunnylands retreat in nearby Rancho Mirage.

He was playing the nine-hole course with Bobby Titcomb and Greg Orme, childhood friends from Hawaii who flew in to meet the president. Marty Nesbitt, one of Obama's friends from Chicago, rounded out the foursome, the White House said.

The president had no public events scheduled during his weekend getaway from the White House. He was expected to spend most of his daylight hours swinging golf clubs in the desert heat, as he has done on visits to the area in each of the past two years.

Obama is becoming a regular at Sunnylands.

Saturday's visit was his fourth to the sprawling estate once owned by the late publishing tycoon Walter Annenberg since 2013, when Obama invited Chinese President Xi Jinping to the retreat for two days of talks.

The timing of Obama's golf vacation couldn't have been better. Obama stepped off of Air Force One into 80-degree, blue-sky weather as the District of Columbia region endured a Valentine's Day blast of bitter cold air, powerful winds and snow.

Obama traveled to Southern California without his wife, Michelle, or their daughters, Malia and Sasha.

At the end of Saturday's weekly address, Obama wished his wife a happy Valentine's Day, and she tweeted a similar message to him later in the day. There was no word from the White House on how the first lady was spending the weekend.

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Obama Spending Long Holiday Weekend in Southern California

Obama told a crowd of industry insiders on the campus of Stanford University that as a former professor of constitutional law, and a parent concerned about his family's online privacy, he had his own misgivings about government intrusion online.

But he said as the nation's protector it falls to him to root out signs of coming threats.

"Grappling with how the government protects the American people from adverse events, while at the same time making sure the government itself is not abusing its capabilities, is hard," Obama said. "The cyber world is the wild wild west. In some degree we're expected to be the sheriff."

Meant to unite industry brass with top U.S. law enforcement officials, the White House cybersecurity summit on the campus of Stanford University attracted only one major Silicon Valley CEO: Apple's Tim Cook, who addressed the gathering shortly before Obama spoke on Friday.

Chief executives at other firms, like Google and Facebook, were invited but sent top network security personnel instead.

People familiar with the companies' decision-making were split on the reason why. One said top bosses were sitting out amid persistent concern over government surveillance, almost two years since the Edward Snowden leaks. Others downplayed the absence, suggesting the summit was intended more for retail firms, banks and insurers -- all of which were hacked recently.

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Indeed, the CEOs or presidents of American Express, MasterCard, Visa and Walgreens were all slated to participate Friday, an indication of the summit's focus on making online payment systems more secure. Those companies were set to announce new commitments to better protect consumer information online.

Those agreements aside, both the White House and officials at technology firms agree there remains a damaged relationship between Obama and Silicon Valley.

"Obviously there have been tensions," said Michael Daniel, Obama's top adviser for cybersecurity issues, citing the privacy concerns raised following Snowden's leaks. "The only way you get at it is continue to have a dialogue and continue to engage."

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Obama huddles with tech execs in San Francisco

President Barack Obama tried to further government cybersecurity partnerships with business luminaries on Friday by announcing an executive order to promote data sharing about digital threats but he still faced challenges from tech firms on digital privacy.

Obama signed the new order onstage during his White House Summit on Cybersecurity and Consumer Protection at Stanford University, adding that its hard balancing the government responsibility to protect privacy rights with the work of defending national security.

Aiming to maintain that equilibrium, Obamas executive order encourages the development of information sharing and analysis organizations, providing legal-liability protection to make it easier for businesses and government to share online threat data specific to their industry or geographic region. It also increases the role of the Department of Homeland Security in the data-sharing process, including by directing the agency to fund the creation of a nonprofit to set voluntary standards for these data clearinghouses that would observe privacy rights of users.

It can help make it easier for companies to get the classified cybersecurity threat information they need, Obama said, explaining the order. Everybody is online, and everybody is vulnerable.

The order also complements Obamas proposed legislation to encourage data-sharing between the government and companies. Sen. Tom Carper, D-Del., on Wednesday introduced a legislative version of Obamas data-sharing proposal, titled the Cyber Threat Sharing Act of 2015.

Bills on the topic in recent years have failed in part due to concerns that company data could wind up in the hands of government intelligence agencies. Obama called for bipartisanship on cybersecurity, while in the same speech touting his support for net neutrality, which has bitterly divided Democrats and Republicans in recent years.

Proposed net neutrality rules that aim to protect Internet competition and access rights by treating all online traffic equally are scheduled for a vote on Feb. 26 at the Federal Communications Commission.

"The very technologies that empower us to do great good can also be used to undermine us and inflict great harm," Obama said. In all our work, we have to make sure we are protecting the privacy and civil liberties of the American people.

Apple Inc. CEO Tim Cook addressed industry concerns about privacy rights at the summit, explaining that his company is committed to its business model of selling luxury technology products, not selling your personal data a line that drew applause from the crowd. Cook, who is openly gay, alluded to the LGBT community when he said digital privacy can mean the difference between life and death, as lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people sometimes feel the need to keep details of their personal lives private.

History has shown us that sacrificing our right to privacy can have dire consequences, he said. We still live in a world where all people are not treated equally.

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Obama, Apple rally business with cybersecurity order

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