Chaska, Minnesota …

Rory McIlroy has issued a public apology to the brother to Dustin Johnson for inadvertently neglecting to shake the hand of caddy Austin Johnson in the euphoria of helping steer Europe back into the Ryder Cup.

McIlroy teamed with rookie Thomas Pieters to secure Europe’s third Fourballs point to trail 3-5 after the opening Foursomes 4 nil whitewash at Hazeltine.

It was the first time in 41 years, and when the late Arnold Palmer was USA Team captain, that a European side had not won an opening session point.

However, Europe dominated the Fourballs and with McIlroy setting-up the final match victory with an eagle ‘3’ at the par five, 16^th.

Straight after his holing the putt, McIlroy bowed to the crowd in an action he described as an ‘exclamation point’ on the European Team’s stunning fightback.

Take. A. Bow. pic.twitter.com/rJnbFRGlIw

— Ryder Cup Team EUR (@RyderCupEurope) September 30, 2016

“I wanted to put an exclamation point on that session for us,” he said.

“I honestly thought about the celebration before I hit the putt.    And there was no concern, no worries on my part, that it would motivate the crowd.

“I bowed to them, saying, ‘You’re welcome for the show’ and we move on

“We had been 4-nil down going into this afternoon and I thought the whole team showed a lot of heart out there.”

However, with the European Captain and his five vice-captains along with 10 other team-mates there to congratulate McIlroy and Pieters, McIlroy had to be reminded he had forgotten to shake Johnson’s hand.

“Oh, did I not?  I get on really well with AJ and DJ and all the Johnson family, so I’ll have to go and apologise to him.  I didn’t realise I didn’t do that.

“I just sort of got caught up in the moment.  I would class AJ as a good buddy of mine on Tour.

“But I guess I just got caught up in the whole scenario.

“I’ll send him a text or go find him in the hotel tonight and apologise to him.”