Ubuntu, and in fact any debian as far as I’m aware has the the

$ update-alternatives

command to manage different versions of installed software. Currently when installing golang ubuntu will default to 1.6, but the repository contains 1.7 as well as package golang-1.7. To allow switching between the versions with the builtin system it can be setup via

$ update-alternatives --install /usr/bin/go go /usr/lib/go-1.7/bin/go 1

Where 1 is the priority, when using auto setup.

$ update-alternatives --config go

Now allows switching between the favorite go version.