[6] His nephew, Mark Purser, is a golfer who represented New Zealand in the Eisenhower Trophy before turning professional.

[5] He won the first of his 33 senior New Zealand national badminton championship titles in 1962, that year winning the men's singles and mixed doubles, with Margaret Moorhead.

[12][13] Four years later, at the 1970 British Commonwealth Games in Edinburgh, he fared better, reaching the quarter-finals of the men's singles before losing to the eventual gold medalist, Jamie Paulson from Canada.

[23] In 2003, after running summer badminton training camps in Austria for 14 years, Purser returned to New Zealand and competed in the men's doubles, paired with Phil Horne, at the North Harbour Open.

At the 2001 World Masters Squash Championships in Melbourne, Purser won the men's 55–59 age group title.