VIDEO: Giant baseball-sized hailstones destroy Minnesota golf course

A heavy thunderstorm pelted Minnesota with giant hailstones that were bigger than a golf ball punching holes in the perfectly levelled ground at Oakdale Golf Club on Friday. 

According to videos and pictures posted on social media, the course was battered by the afternoon supercell that prompted numerous severe thunderstorm warnings and one tornado alert in the area, located in rural Buffalo Lake, about 15 miles southwest of Hutchinson, Minnesota.

A Minnesota resident, Derek Hasselberg, and one of his friends were among the golfers when a lightning alert was sent to the course and took cover under a wooden shelter on the 13th hole, and that's when the giant hail started to fall.

"We went into the shelter on No 13 because lightning was coming," Hasselberg told Bring Me The News. "Didn't expect the hail. Lasted about 10 minutes maybe. Started as dime size and then it escalated."

Hasselberg later shared the extreme damage done to the greens and vehicles in the parking lot of the clubhouse with windows blown out by the hail.

The supercell storm developed in southern Kandiyohi County at 3:45pm, causing severe damage to Oakdale Golf Club and the surrounding area. It continued east-southeast and diminished in intensity.

The Oakdale Golf Club announced on Facebook that it would provide an update after assessing the damage and that it would be closed for the rest of Friday.

At 4:28 pm, the National Weather Service received a report of 2.75-inch hail roughly five miles northeast of Buffalo Lake.

Additionally, on Friday, there were many reports of hail and wind damage, including a remarkable record of 3.75-inch hail near Dassel, which is roughly 20 miles to the northeast of Oakdale Golf Club.

Nations around the globe have been experiencing extreme weather conditions since the beginning of this year which experts have linked to human-induced climate change.