newer golfers need to have their hands and arms trained to get a feel for swinging, a free release, and feeling the clubface.
As they progress to intermediate-advanced level, they need to be trained to control their release and clubface with the rotation of their body.
Better players will often describe the feeling as simply holding the club, or passive hands, or that their hands do nothing.
That's because their hands are already trained to swing freely and release, often to a fault, and they need to hold it off.
The stronger the grip and and/or the more closed the clubface, the more they need to passive hands through the ball
Try skipping a progression of learning with a beginner and go right to passive hands and pure body release, or better yet tell them to simply "hold the club" and NOTHING good will happen.
Tiger Woods or any expert will work hard to take the hands out of their swings to create power and consistency, but only because their hands were trained 30 years ago and needn't feel like they're doing anythig.
High handicap and beginner golfers who read instruction for advanced-expert golfers only are doomed to not improve,and risk getting worse.
People want to read what the best are working on, but most golfers would do well to read the works of Percy Boomer, Ernest Jones, Henry Cotton,John Jacobs,Tommy Armour,Bob Toski, Jim Flick,Harvey Penick, and Jim Mclean before moving onto the gurus who specialize in teaching Tour players.
Doesn't mean the gurus are not good teachers, just that the articles they write typically relate to the work and techniques they employ with experts(who already have trained hands and arms), because that's what magazines want.
Modern body release techniques were taught and used well before the modern equipment changed. Ben Hogan describes it in his 5 fundamentals, Jimmy ballard repioneered and evangelized the body release after the dark ages of advanced instruction in the 60s and 70's (the era of hang back and flip)
David Leadbetter was working with Nick Faldo with persimmon, balata, and blades. Jim McLean who popularized the term Progression of learning, has taught the big muscle swing for 30 + years to better players.
There are of course hordes of teachers who now teach the big muscle swing, because of the success of the above and others, and as a result, there are far more good-great players today.
Two players I have observed over the years who are awesome ballstrikers and have the ultimate big muscle swings, Hal Sutton and Hunter Mahan, have abysmal short games, due to the fact that they try to use a smaller big muscle swing for the short game, which often results in poor contact and abysmal feel. The good news is they miss very few greens.
In the short game, the hands and arms have to be employed in the backswing to get the club in a striking position sooner, as well as to create feel. It's hard to toss a ball into a basket with your shoulder or trunk, but your hands will do just fine. A quiet hands, body release on the downswing however is quite desireable.
Handsier players usually are better bunker players and lobbers (Mickelson, Couples, Pavin, Donald, Tiger when he was handsier)
Pitching and chipping can be accomplished quite well with a proper body release, as long as the hands/wrists are preset, or allowed to set with minimal turn on the backswing (which is where and why big muscle short game players can suffer in the short game)