Wrapping a line in a try catch is equivalent to the go error check routine. Should be roughly the same amount of lines if you care about that sort of thing.

There's bad programmers everywhere. Writing if err != nil { return err } is the same as not handling exceptions (they just bubble up).

Maybe you think this because go shoves the exceptions front and center in your face and forces you to deal with them. I suppose it can be a helpful crutch for beginners but it just winds up being annoying imo.