Split environment

Hello to everybody ! First of all sorry for my English since I'm not a
native speaker.
What I wanted to know is whether it is normal for the following code not to
compile with error:

! Extra alignment tab has been changed to \cr.
<template> }$\hfill \endtemplate

l.10                 \end{split}


CODE:

\documentclass{article}

\usepackage{amsmath}

\begin{document}
            \begin{equation}
                \begin{split}
                    g & < & f \\
                    g & < & f \\
                \end{split}
            \end{equation}

\end{document}

END OF CODE

Did i misunderstood somehow my books or is it some bug or whatever ?
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