I think the 'new' revised shot with more grass in the foreground is an improvement in terms of compositional elements. I also like how the more green gives the shot more colour.
Definitely an improvement.
Well, going from Auto to Program mode is a step in the right direction in terms of you taking control of the controls of your camera!
I started the same way and ended up shooting in Manual Mode all the time.
JPGs are fine for starters but for ultimate control you will want to shoot RAW so you have the most amount of data which you can then develop. Anyway, that's a long topic.
Cheers
Thomas